Dangerous pavement parking outside the shops on Tong Street, which is part of the A650, has been a problem for years and Matt Edwards, the Green Party’s Community Campaigner for Tong Ward has called on Bradford Council to do something to tackle the issue.Matt said,
“Pavement are there for pedestrians. Pavement parking is dangerous and selfish. I have seen cases of young mums with prams being forced to go onto Tong Street to navigate around cars.
“What makes this particular site so frustrating, is that there is a free public car park less than a minute walk away just off Broadstone Way. There is really no excuse.”
“Bradford Council really need to do something to make things safer by making it more difficult to park here.”
During the Coronavirus pandemic, councils across the country installed temporary measures to ensure that pedestrians have more space on pavements to allow them to socially distance.
Matt added that the increase in cases of coronavirus made the need to stop pavement parking urgent:
“We have seen a surge in cases in Coronavirus cases across Bradford District and whilst this part of Bradford has had some of the lowest number of cases, we really do need to make pubic spaces safer for pedestrians to socially distance.
“Tong Street is one of the busiest roads in the district and we can’t have situations occurring where pedestrians are being forced onto the road to get around the cars scattered on the pavement.”
Earlier this year, a new consultation was announced about on whether to ban the practice nationwide or give local councils more power to tackle the issue.
Pavement parking has been banned in London since the 1970s but in the rest of the country only lorries are banned from parking on pavements.