OK, i'll try and keep this as brief as possible. Maybe i'm just getting old and turning into Victor Meldrew

I live in a private mews of 12 houses. We all pay a service charge for the maintainance of grounds etc. Opposite the entrance to our mews is a newsagent/corner shop type affair. Despite a mahoosive notice stating it's private parking we still get people dumping their cars to go to the shop. When any of us moan these people normally cite the double yellow lines outside as the reason for parking. The shop keeper even had the audacity the other week to complain that my on-call van had got some woman an FPN 'cause she couldn't park. I think you can guess what my reply was

To complicate matters further there is a public footpath which runs right through the middle so we get all the scrotey/chavvy kids walking through on the way to school/to buy crack. There's nothing we can do about that, but would we be justified in putting up some kind of barrier restricting vehicular access?

We had a residents meeting a few weeks back where everyone except one person (who i'll come to in a minute) said it was a good idea and they would contribute provided their guests etc could gain access easily. The one resident who has caused fuss is older than Gods dog and hasn't had any visitors since 1907, but I have a horrible feeling that we can't do anything unless the decision is unanimous.

Does anyone have any experience of this kind of thing? Any suggestions (including suppliers of systems etc) would be most welcome.

TIA

S

 

what about collapisable security posts? Shouldnt think it would be too much hassle to get this done. The extreme end of things would be to put a notice saying parking violators will be wheelclamped, and either clamp anything in your spot yourself or get a security company in to do it. I should think youd need a consensus from the other residents for this though.

Why not contact the local council and run it by them to see what kind of things that you as a resident could do.

 

If it's a private mews and private road, all your residents would love to stop the parking, but will be irritated that they themselves have to get out and move the barrier each time - or will baulk at paying a grand each (or more) to chip in for a fancy motorised unit. Good luck!

 

Tried the council - basically told me it was nothing to do with them and to **** off.

There is a couple of quidsworth of cars at stake as well, bearing in mind by neighbour had his STi VI nicked from his garage in the middle of the night. We want something that will make them think twice. Just standing in the window now and have watched two kids having a coke fight right by my mates GTC.

I did wonder about the hydraulic posts you get, but I don't know where to look

 

Hire a traffic warden costume and take turns to patrol the street

Otherwise apart from putting a barrier up at the entrance (which will be a pain) I dont think theres much more you could do.

 

http://www.aprimatic.co.uk/about.php

http://www.bft.co.uk/


I put these two as I have a BFT up and over garage door, working for 10 years without problem, and I just fitted some aprimatic swing gate openers - 1200 euros for the openers and their fitting (vaguely 800 quid?). You need the gates as well, and you'd have to get a better model than mine as it would serve 12 houses rather than one, so many more cycles / day.

I was impressed with aprimatic's online support, very detailed manuals.

I was head of a residents' assoc for a private cul-de-sac for a year, with similar probs (opposite a school, v close to shops), and as I said - they all hated the parkers, but when it came to the bottom line, no-one wanted to cough up, or to suffer the inconvenience of a barrier. BTW, there are also legal problems about who "owns" the equipment, closing off a road, fire access, etc...

Sorry mate, only trying to help

 

I know it will leave a bad taste in the mouth but how about clamping. If it's a private road then you could get a clamping firm in, all you need is the proper signs and some sort of badge for residents.