Letter: £50 to park outside my own house in Market Drayton?
Wednesday 11th May 2011, 6:00AM BST.
Letter: I live in Frogmore Road, off Prospect Road in Market Drayton and since the council started to make people pay on all car parks, we get a lot of parking in our street.
So, fed up, I contacted Shropshire Council to see if we can get residents’ parking only. They said they are going to give us parking permits but they want the residents of Frogmore Road to pay for the permits.
They will only cost us £50 for the privilege to park outside my own house, which I have done for many years.
I’m all for permits, but I will not pay for them. I will park my car in somebody else’s street and let them have the same problem as we are getting.
I already pay road tax, insurance and MoT and making me pay for a permit is another tax.
I know Shropshire Council has had its budget cut off the government and is short of money, so now they have realised they can get a few thousand back by charging us folk who don’t even park on the car parks and I have also read the council is going to spend thousands on new vehicles. Now I know who is paying for these new vehicles.
Name and address supplied
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Pay your taxes… Don’t be tight :)
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The law is pretty clear on this. You have no rights to park on any given spot of any given road, so everyone who is parking in your street to avoid car park charges is well within their right to.
On that basis, what you have asked for is indeed a privilege, and I feel the council is well in their rights to charge for it. The signs they will need to erect and the cost of enforcing the permits needs to be covered by someone, and it’s entirely fair it is covered by the people benefitting for it.
Put it another way – Would you be annoyed if your council tax went up, and the reason your council gave was that the cost of enforcing resident-only parking had risen, yet you didn’t benefit from resident-only parking?
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Fair point, which is why it costs more to buy a house with private parking. If permits are issued for free then shouldn’t I be entitled to some kind of rebate for providing my own parking?
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It’s arrogant to assume that the state has a duty to provide people with free storage (on-street parking) for private property (motor vehicles).
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Best thing to do is sell your car and go on the dole if you work and become a vegetable in your own house.
As a motorist you are victimised, raped of your hard earned money by petrol tax, road tax, parking charges, be it outside of your own house or when you go shopping. don’t forget parking on the street leaves your car open to vandalism by local yobs which the police will never find
The life of a motorist is not a happy one.
The alternative is to use the expensive, irregular public transport system. You can sit in comfort next to anti social drunks, people full fo the cold and other diseases.
The choice is yours!
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I come from Edinburgh where some residents parking permits cost over £2000 per year. On top of that, The local authority has issued more permits than there are residents spaces. Fifty quid souds like a bargain! However, Edinburgh does provide residents only spaces.
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Ben Smith puts it well. You don’t own the road nor the pavement. Technically therefore anyone can park there as long as they are not blocking any driveway access you might already have. In someways this is positive though; if someone falls outside on the pavement … they can’t sue you!
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I’m not sure how a person with a permit to park outside their house could enforce it. Would there be a car size box painted on the road saying something like ‘Parking for permit holder only’. And if someone else parked in the space what could the permit holder do about it? Stick a notice on the offending car’s windscreen, clamp it,tell the police or block it in until the owner showed up? I don’t know how it could work.
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Got it in one, either marked residents spaces and/or signs at the ende of the restricted areas. Permits are issued in zones. If you park without a permit or in the wrong zone, you get a parking ticket and the threat of your vehicle being taken to the pound. It has been like this for decades in other parts of the UK
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Hate to say it Edward, but you need to get out more.
Most metropolitan areas have resident parking permits that are easily enforced. No resident permit in your car window when parked in a marked residents only parking area – ticket or towed.
And for the record, 50 quid is a bargin. Consider the convenience.
Simple.
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Is it the councils right to charge? Do they legally own the part of Frogmore road so can they legally charge? Some things need looking in to for all the legalities.So much red tape!!!
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Yes, the Council legally owns the road and pavement.
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Shropshire Council owns and maintains the road and footpaths for the majority of Shropshire, bar Telford and Wrekin and Unadopted roads
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£50 per hour, day, week, month or year?
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Year fella. so not really a lot
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Much like the author, we too suffer from persons not only parking on the street but also on the pavement outside my front door blocking the pavement and our house access. Our privately owned off-road parking spaces are also used! I challenged a man and woman last week who parked in my drive to go shopping. When I pointed out that they were parking on private property they actually made threats of violence. All to save 10p! My wife returned and could not park. What powers do I have to move these morons? None. I will willingly pay £50 to help prevent these selfish so an so’s. I would also endorse a manned police force that actually did something when you call them.
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Gary, stoop to their level, I am told a tin of brake fluid works wonders on a cars paintwork.
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tend to agree in extreme circumstances
i-e you get abuse ect parking is 40-to
80 in my town but still they try avoid it p-s make sure you are undetected!!!
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take their details, and a few photos, so you can demonstrate the issue. Then park behind them blocking them in, and take yourself off for a nice night in the pub or even a weekend away ;)
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Do I hold an odd opinion here but why does the council have to provide parking for some people. Isn’t the road meant for people to drive on and to get about? It’s not a parking area.
There are far too many roads which have been reduced to a single track with passing paces because people leave their property in the road.
When I bought my house I made sure I had a drive big enough for me to park off the road. This cost me money so why should I now have to subsidise those who choose to leave their property on the public highway.
Its no different if I were to by a snooker table or a ridiculously large fridge and leave it outside in the road. I could then bleat, “where else am I expected to leave it”
You have a choice. Either buy a house with enough space so you can keep your car on your own land or don’t buy a car in the first place.
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Well said.
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How much Road Tax do you pay for your snooker table and fridge?
None? then you can’t stick it on the road. If a car has no tax, it gets a ticket, or towed.
and beside rain spoils the baize.
The OP isn’t talking about providing car parking space for people, they’re talking about securing that space for local people. If they live in council houses, which you subsidise by the way with your taxes, maybe the council does have a duty…
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Resident Permit Parking, as noted, is available in many parts of the country, and as others have mentioned £50 is a bargain.
But, they only work if signed (which costs sign installation, permit issuing, monitoring etc) and enforced. Which requires employment of teams of wardens to issue penalty notices etc and arrange tow aways.
The above cannot be done for £50 per year per permit.
In the same way that carparking in north shropshire at 10p per hour cannot be done (cost of machinery, wardens etc far exceeds the revenue from the 10p tickets.)
Within 12 months the council will first acknowledge the facts above, secondly, undertake a public consultation. Thirdly increase the cost of resident permits to an economic level of in excess of £300 per annum, and increase parking charges to a minimum £1 per hour throughout North Shropshire.
All the above is intended as both revenue raising for the council, job creation (wardens, ticketing, monitoring) and job protection within highways and other departments.
The other beneficiaries of all the above are the out of town supermarkets and retail parks that currently provide free parking.
However that will also be looked at by this greedy council, along with the provision of charges for work based parking.
And, it will all be wrapped up in “sustainable transport policy” emphasising the need for an integrated public transport policy.
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No council won a road they are all owned by the D O T that is the Departmnt of transport
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I totally agree that it is extremely annoying with people parking outside your homes, i have been in this situation when i lived in my previous house, however majority of the people that have had to result in doing this are the people who work in Drayton and have to travel in, I live 14 miles away and have to drive in everyday, if i had to pay for parking as well this would take my monthly petrol and parking bill to around £180.00 per month, i don’t want to drive to work but can’t find anything where i live. So please don’t blame all these people, the people to blame are the council, and by the way i dont park in any roads and certainly would’nt park on anyones driveway.
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