Driveway rentals rise fivefold as commuters stick to the car

NEW driveway rentals have surged by 550 per cent since last year, with commuters intent on avoiding public transport.

New enquiries for unoccupied driveways rose to 416 between Apriljune, up from 64 over the same period in 2019, according to Kerb, an online platform for advertising parking spaces across the UK.

It says there has been a sharp rise in workers booking spaces closer to city centre offices.

Robert Brown, the chief executive of Kerb, told The Sunday Telegraph: “People are wary of getting back onto dirty buses and trains in close proximity to each other. ‘Dirt’ and ‘distance’ are the new key performance indicators by which public transport, office environments and car parks will be measured, going forward.”

“Once cities return to normal, we are expecting to see a two-fold increase in year-on-year overall demand for driveway parking in the inner cities of London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle, Liverpool, Glasgow and Belfast,” he added. The peripheries of London’s zones 1 and 2 are particularly sought after by workers who feel that driving is the safest way to commute.

Tom Stanley, 24, a tax adviser from Fulham who rents out his driveway, said: “We have a space in a great location, which brings in around £15 on average every day. We thought the demand would decrease at the beginning of the lockdown but this was not the case. We have never had a more busy month than the one we just had.”

He added: “Our location is near Stamford Bridge and a hospital which charges around £25 to park. Most of the people we get are builders and staff that work there.”

Research estimates that there are more than 350,000 available parking spaces on driveways in the UK, with residents in Kensington and Chelsea making the most from renting them, earning £3,804 per year on average.