Inside the UK community that's been turned into 'one giant car park' amid row
Make your way down Western Drive, Western Avenue or River View and you'd be forgiven for thinking there was a major event taking place. A local wedding? A big concert or sporting event nearby? But this is just an average day.
Tarmac here is prime real estate. Every inch of the kerb is lined up, bumper to bumper. There are more cars on the pavement than on the grid of a Formula 1 race. Residents of Gabalfa are "fed up" with cars being parked dangerously and illegally outside their homes. And anger in the Cardiff suburb is being sent in one direction.
According to residents, students from Cardiff Metropolitan University's Llandaff Campus have been parking their cars here for two decades but the issue has gotten "progressively worse." Malcolm Pepper doesn't mince his words. The 79-year-old describes the scenes as "absolutely mental" and says every year is worse than the last.
Residents and Cardiff Met students parking issues around Gabalfa as cars congest streets around the Cardiff suburb. Resident- Malcolm Pepper Pics by Rob Browne (WalesOnline/Rob Browne)"There are not enough car parking facilities for students, there needs to be more to stop them parking around here," the Gabalfa resident of 23 years said. Limited space means parking at the Llandaff campus is only available to staff members who live further than two miles from the site. The same rule has been in force since 2010.
The University has however tried to ease issues by handing out £200 annual bus pass discounts to 800 of its students through the Welsh Government. A representative from Cardiff Metropolitan University stated: "We recognise that our Llandaff campus is embedded in the heart of local communities, and we work hard to ensure that our students are thoughtful about their behaviours, including car usage, and how these can impact our campus neighbours.
Nursery apologises after child with Down's syndrome ‘treated less favourably’
"We're proud of our strong community links and that, even when we have growing student numbers, we have been able to maintain strong positive relationships between ourselves and our neighbours. We encourage our students not to bring cars to campus wherever this is possible, and to use public transport and active travel wherever they can. We subsidise bus travel between campuses."
Cars are double parked all along the pavements around Gabalfa (WalesOnline/Rob Browne)Ruhan Chowdhury, a student at Cardiff Met who joined last year and studies at the Llandaff campus, confesses to using the residential areas of Gabalfa for parking when attending lectures as it's the only place he can. "I park here because the university doesn't let students park on the campus, only the staff so I have nowhere else to park," he said.
Ruhan is convinced that he always parks legally, yet explains that he's had a few brushes with residents. "I wasn't blocking a drive or taking up too much room on the pavement but a man came out of his house to shout at me for parking here. It actually wasn't even his house that I was parked near," he said.
It is not certain who actually made the sign but it is believed to be a resident in the area (WalesOnline/Rob Browne)Squabbles between locals and students increasingly occur due to vehicles parked over driveways and in the way of pavements. This forces pedestrians to use the road, problematically impacting wheelchair users and pram-pushers particularly. The situation's grown so tense that a sign discouraging student parking has been posted.
Timea Uhrin, a resident of Gabalfa for eight years expressed: "I understand that they don't have anywhere else to park but it doesn't cause much of an issue for me. I think that the university should have parking for the students for free." Suzie, aged 64 and a resident on Western Drive for 23 years, finds navigating Gabalfa tricky and "really dangerous" because of cars clogging the streets.
Timea Uhrin has lived in Gabalfa for eight years (WalesOnline/Rob Browne)She stated: "It's so dangerous. Crossing the street is dangerous because you are having to step out onto the road to see if a car is coming. Cars also park along the pavement, not leaving enough room for wheelchairs or pushchairs to go past and often not even a person can fit."
Mark Davies, a 53-year-old who's called Western Drive home since 2003 complained of the way students park: "The problem isn't that the students park here, it's the way they park. They park on double-yellow lines, across the pavements and on the corners. I understand why they park here though, would you pay to park somewhere else when you could park here for free? But Gabalfa has turned into a car park over the years because of it."
According to residents cars often park on double-yellow lines (WalesOnline/Rob Browne)Mark has been getting in touch with Cardiff Council a lot about this problem, and so have many people who live nearby. They keep being told that if cars are parked in a dangerous way or not following the rules, it's something the police need to deal with.
Back in January, the council came up with a new idea for parking that might change how parking works on the streets of Cardiff after they asked people what they think, reports Wales Online. The council wants to make 'parking zones' in different parts of the city to help people living there find a place to park near their homes and to stop people who are just visiting from taking all the spaces.
In Gabalfa, this plan would mean that you can only park on the street if you have a permit, and this rule would be in place from 8 in the morning until 10 at night. The people in charge at the council said yes to the first version of this new parking plan on Thursday, January 18, but they need to ask the public what they think before they can really start using the City Parking Plan.
Striking teacher forced to take a second job to pay bills ahead of mass walkout
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
