Tickets spark one-man parking protest

There was a time, admittedly years ago, when there were few cars parked on the street where we live. Nowadays, the Waverley bus struggles to pick a path through vehicles parked both sides. I have always regarded it as the responsibility of residents to 'park-on-their-own-patch', if possible, but the incidence of multiple cars in families, (occasionally with more vehicles than punters to use them), has seen the increasing tendency of people to park any vehicles which are surplus to immediate requirements, in front of someone else's 'pad', usually to keep their own drive-ways and street-frontages clear. This would concern me less, if the owners concerned had the nous to regard parking in front of someone else's place as something of a 'privilege', but no, it is assumed to be a 'right' and any attempt to enter into discussion with those concerned and point that out, invites, at a minimum, 'the fingers', personal abuse or an assertion of vigorously defended 'rights'.
So, we have been forced to suffer 'cars-for-sale' and vehicles casually parked, hogging the space outside our front gate for weeks at a time. As if that were not enough, these vehicles, (the one in this instance being a 'boy-racer's' chariot), invariably and arrogantly park right in the middle of the space, denying access to at least one other parked vehicle, where there would plainly be room for two if the miscreants possessed as much as a shred of intelligence, or consideration for others. You then find yourself in a situation where, apparently the person with least 'right' to park outside your property, in society's eyes, is you, yourself.

Oh c'mon, "it is not council's business to provide households with parking". How dense is this man? Mr Walker isn't complaining about having nowhere to park as he can park without difficulty. His issue is that parking in the council approved manner causes motorists to have no room to drive. And last I checked, the DCC is in the business of providing roads that are safe and navigable.

Mr Conaghan, please address the problem of parking on narrow Dunedin roads, and stop coming up arguments to issues that haven't yet arisen in this case. The problem could be solved by either allowing cars to park with wheels on the footpath or making one side of the road a no parking zone. The first solution pleases both moving and parked car owners. Only with the second solution does the issue of having nowhere to park arise.

Either way, Mr Walker's concern is allayed, but the first solution means no one really misses out - except the council can no longer ticket concerned locals who park with others in mind. You really have to wonder about the the competency of some DCC staff at times.

Good on you Mr Walker. I received a ticket earlier this year for parking in our narrow street (which runs off another very steep street) with my car facing the wrong way. I wrote to DCC to explain that often there are so many cars parked in our street that it is impossible to do a three point turn to get the car round the right way. This was of no avail so I paid up - and for the last six months I have watched our neighbours parking in exactly the same fashion, facing the wrong way, but they have never been ticketed.

Obviously my ticket was just a revenue grab at the time when inner city parking was so expensive that hardly anyone was parking there any more.

I would have thought with the recent adverse publicity regarding parking in Dunedin a softening approach to situations might be more appropropiate.

The quote from Bruce Conaghan "its not the council's business to provide households with parking" seems high handed and to be at odds with what the Council actually does provide regarding parking spaces.

It is in the business to my knowledge and does provide "private parking spaces" for households who are having difficulty parking outside their house and are willing to pay for a park outside their homes call me a nit picker but ....