Vehicles parked on pavements

Many people will have seen the modern housing estates that are being built around Wokingham. Once people move in we have cars stacked on the pavements and parked in unusual places, making it unsafe for pedestrians and cyclists. In Wokingham we have the highest car ownership of any council around us. This is as a result of where people work vs the lack of good public transport to get you there. But, yet the ‘Wokingham Plan’ allocates only 0.5 car parking spaces per single bedroom flat and of course this is the standard that developers will work to.

The reality is, even a single bedroom flat will probably have one working person in it and quite likely two. It often takes two incomes to get a mortgage or pay the rent. These residents will quite reasonably want as space for their own car and they may even want people to visit, especially if the live on the edges of the town. I really don’t think our developers care that much about the long term quality of life for the people in these places. 

At this point I am not able to do very much to protect the Green spaces that have already been allocated for development, but I can do my best to make things better for the people who will live there and those that have to live with the consequences. Good parking provision is up there, high on my list.