Obstacles in the street block people from walking safely and accessing opportunities every day. Almost five years on from a Government consultation on pavement marking, Guide Dogs are calling for a new national law on pavement parking to ensure our streets and communities are safe and accessible for everyone.
Toby Perkins, MP for Chesterfield, met Guide Dogs at Labour Party Conference in late September, following representations from constituents, to discuss their findings on the impacts of pavement parking on people with sight loss.
Four in five blind or partially sighted people said that pavement parking makes it difficult to walk on the pavement at least once a week. And a similar proportion of people with sight loss said that reducing obstacles on pavements was important to improving their quality of life.
Pavement parking impacts a vast majority of the UK public, not just people with sight loss. Over 80% of people in the UK reported that they have had to walk in the road due to vehicles parked on pavements. This is especially dangerous for disabled and older people, as well as parents with children.
In 2020, the previous Government held a consultation on how to tackle pavement parking in England. Since then, no response has been published by the Government or further progress on made.
Toby Perkins, MP for Chesterfield, is backing Guide Dogs’ call for a new national law on pavement parking. This would be a law against pavement parking, except in places exempted by local councils. This would not be a blanket ban – local authorities can designate exemptions, as many streets were not designed with the current volume of traffic in mind. This new law would empower local authorities to act via civil enforcement, rather than relying on overstretched police forces.
Toby Perkins wrote earlier in the summer to Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Transport, Lilian Greenwood MP, to urge her Department to respond swiftly to the 2020 consultation to tackle pavement parking and to set out next steps for making our streets and pavements safer for all, to which the Minister responded that next steps would be announced as soon as possible. In the absence of any action, Toby has also submitted a written parliamentary question to press the Government on the timeline for responding to the consultation.
Toby Perkins MP for Chesterfield said: “Pavement parking can force people into the road, throwing up just another barrier for people with sight loss from walking safely and accessing opportunities every day.
I urge the Government to back Guide Dogs’ call for a new national law on pavement parking, to ensure our streets and communities are safe and accessible for everyone.”
