Parking around Bermondsey Street

Does anyone else feel that there are just not enough resident's parking spaces on Bermondsey Street - I very rarely find anywhere near my flat to park in and now with the road works suspending loads of them for the next few weeks it is getting damn near impossible to find anywhere to park.
Surely there is more room on Bermondsey Street itself?

when we have said to the council before that there was not sufficient parking in the area for the amount of cars that had been issued with permits they informed us that the permit gives you a right to park if there is a space but they do not guarantee there will be any spaces or that there will not be more cars wanting spaces than spaces free. In other words you take pot luck if you go out in your car whether you will be able to get back on a bay again!

What should the council do? B St (in common with lots of SE1) has a high density of flats. There'll never be enough room for half of the people to have cars.

Even if there were enough room, I'm not sure I'd say it would add anything to the area to turn it into a car park (given that I'd say that most people who live in SE1 are unlikely to be driving a car every day). Certainly a lot of the cars in the road outside our place never seem to move from one weekend to the next.

Perhaps it's unrealistic to expect to live so centrally (e.g. B St is practically IN London Bridge station) and to have a right to a parking space.

For my part, if there's room to make more parking spaces, I'd lobby the council to make them into allotments instead.

The problem with parking in central London is that the council has to issue a parking permit to everybody who meets the criteria specified. They can't not sell a permit to someone who meets the requirements as that's discrimination of sorts... Unfortunately, it's not done on a 'one out, one in' type stategy. (Imagine moving into the borough only to find out you're on a waiting list for a parking space!)

So in a very high population and car density/ low kerb-distance area there will be more cars than spaces.

Nowadays though councils have sought to maximise spaces by turning as many as possible into shared use bays.

My solution - I sold my car and upgraded my bike! :o)

i agree it would not be practical to expect to have a parking bay for every car - indeeed on most of the new developments being built now such as Bermondsey Square there is no parking and you cannot apply for a parking permit if you live at that address. Hoverever it seems silly for the council to keep issuing permits for areas where there is already too many cars to bays (except given the price hikes recently announced this is the area where a lot of money is expected to come from next year).

I know people who have young children who have to park a long way from where they live and then lug kids shopping etc home and my parents(prior to being issued with a blue badge and bay) also had real problems trying to park near their home when my mother was having problems walking so it is not just people using their cars weekends who use the bays and cannot park.

Quote:

indeeed on most of the new developments being built now such as Bermondsey Square there is no parking and you cannot apply for a parking permit if you live at that address

Really? On what basis?

dee dee is quite correct - it's commonly a condition of planning permission for new developments in this area that future residents can't apply for on-street parking permits.

James Hatts wrote:

dee dee is quite correct - it's commonly a condition of planning permission for new developments in this area that future residents can't apply for on-street parking permits.

Ironically the Council also prevents developers from including parking within many of the newer developments.

So you're stuck, no permit, no private space. Basically as far as they're concerned, you're not supposed to have a car.

James Hatts wrote:

dee dee is quite correct - it's commonly a condition of planning permission for new developments in this area that future residents can't apply for on-street parking permits.

Its known as Section 106 agreement. Basically the council can say we'll give you permission to build x many flats but if you plan on building y many flats then the residents will never be able to apply for parking permits. It's fairly common now, especially in areas like Clapham, Balham, Marylebone etc where houses were being split into several flats.

On the positive side there are plenty car hire companies nearby (Avis at the big hotel on N side of Tower Bridge, Thrifty under the arches) and car clubs such as Streetcar have several cars even nearer to use by the hour/day.