No go warning to nuisance parkers

Inconsiderate Parking...As a local Lib Dem City Councillor in the Gunthorpe Ward, the Lib Dem Gunthorpe Focus Team and I regularly see and receive complaints on the doorstep and by other means from many residents, regarding the problem of inconsiderate parking.

In particular the streets that surround the local primary schools, this is a regular complaint which is shown from the results of the residents surveys that the Gunthorpe Focus Team have carried out.

What is Inconsiderate Parking?

I personally believe that inconsiderate parking occurs, when very busy people are focusing on their next ‘job’ on their very long ‘to do list’ and simply park with no consid- eration for anyone else. An example being; Needing to pick the kids up from school, drop them off at their grandparents and get back to work.

There’s nowhere ‘safe’ to park, with no time to park two streets away ‘safely’ because you only have 10 minutes to; get to the school gates, for their teacher to let them all out... one by one, for Fred to forget his drinks bottle... and his socks? to retrieve the missing items and finally get back to the car.

It’s a simple mistake that most of us have made at some point, but it can be dangerous and put lives at risk (especially around schools).

Not only are children at risk of being injured possibly fatally, due to the simple fact the emergency service vehicles have been unable to gain access to streets safely due to double parking and cars blocking the road, but residents are unable to leave their properties due to being blocked in by cars parked over their drive ways.

Parents with pushchairs and disabled wheelchair users have to walk out into the road because cars are blocking the pathway.

Parking restrictions are in place for pedestrians and residents; some who have said they feel ‘trapped in their own homes’ because people are parking fully over their driveways and they are unable to leave their homes.

Sadly, not all of these parkers are ‘just in a rush’ and a few become abusive to residents when asked to move.

This is something that residents and pedestrians have to deal with on a daily basis and not only around the schools.

Since I have been elected I have worked very hard to tackle this issue.

I have been working closely with local residents and the local schools.

We have had courses given out to parents at the local primary schools to promote safer parking, large banners placed locally to ask people to park with children in mind and parking enforcement officers attending on a regular basis.

Although advice can be given, it’s difficult to enforce it with no powers in place for us to do so.

Luckily as of March 1, 2018, new enforcement actions for parking contraventions are being put into place in Peterborough.

These are to adopt powers to take action against vehicles which are causing a hazard by either double parking or parking in front of dropped kerbs.

The penalty for these con- traventions is set at £70.

If you would like to read the specific guidelines then please visit www.peterborough.gov.uk for parking policies and where exemptions may apply.

If anyone needs to report a vehicle parked against a dropped kerb or double parked please contact the council or email parking.enforcement@peterborough. gov.uk

Along with these new contraventions myself and your local councillors will all continue to work hard locally to try to tackle these issues.

In the meantime to keep up to date on what I am doing in Gunthorpe please follow @CllrAndrewBond on Facebook.

Please think before you park, no matter how busy you are.

You may be putting someone’s life at risk.