Ep. 3 – Pavement parking: A daily danger

Filed under: Podcast

There is an ongoing problem of pavement parking in the UK. In this episode we hear the personal experiences of Aideen Blackborough, a wheelchair user. Aideen shares the daily dangers she faces due to cars parked on pavements, emphasising the need for legislative change to protect vulnerable pedestrians.

https://www.livingstreets.org.uk

https://aideenblackborough.com/2026/01/08/pavement-parking/

Transcript

Kevin Carmody (00:06)
Since recording this episode, the government has released a response to the pavement parking consultation. Despite overwhelming support for a national ban, the choice was given to give powers to the devolved authority at the highest tier. For us, that’s the West Midlands combined authority. It’s not clear if they will implement a ban at the region level, which might be difficult to sell to some council leaders, or if Birmingham itself could become a banned area. What is going to be useful is that obstructive pavement parking will become a civil offence.

as currently it is a police offence, and that change will be useful so long as councils like Birmingham City Council doesn’t give obstructive payment parking a grace period. Unless the West Midlands Combined Authority can get all council leaders to agree to a regional ban, it’s likely to be business as usual with rolling out parking controls on a street by street basis. Struggle here continues. Here follows the original episode.

Kevin Carmody (01:01)
It’s been five years since the Department of Transport consultation into pavement parking in England closed and there’s still no response and no action from the blight that most people want solved. Aideen Blackborough from Great Barr is a wheelchair user with cerebral palsy and she lives in an area where she should be able to take her kids safely to school. However, every day people park on the pavements that she has to use forcing her to go into the road to get past. These aren’t narrow roads either.

These aren’t drivers that are forced to use the pavements. These are just habits that people have learned. It’s the lack of thought by drivers that makes her life a daily danger. However, it is the lack of action from both the government and the local council that facilitate this danger. Aideen, thank you very much for joining us today to share your story. you’ve been working with the campaign group Living Streets to highlight your experience.

what is it that kind of made you finally say, right, I’m going to reach out to someone like Living Streets and see if we can tackle this?

Aideen (02:05)
I don’t think it was one dramatic moment but it was more the relentlessness of it. Every single day I was being forced into the road

or forced to go back on myself or just taking risks just to get from A to B. And then there was the moment when

I actually kicked out of my wheelchair because a car had completely stopped on the pavement and that’s that for me for the moment when

It stopped being an inconvenience

Kevin Carmody (03:24)
Yeah, yeah.

Aideen (03:25)
and it became a genuine safety concern I realised this wasn’t a me problem. This was a design and behaviour problem.

Staying quiet about it wasn’t an option anymore.

Kevin Carmody (04:07)
Yeah, yeah. mean that, yeah, it’s not just inconvenience, is it? This is actual danger that people are causing.

Aideen (04:12)
No.

It turns up so risk. I need to risk my life and my safety every day.

Kevin Carmody (04:29)
Yeah,

yeah. know. So the guide dog UK survey found that 95 % of wheelchair users are having to be forced into the road. mean, this is a really common problem. know? Yeah.

Aideen (04:43)
Yeah. I’ve

been one of those so passionate about this, it isn’t about me it’s about everybody that uses a wheelchair or a guide dog.

Obviously, it’s a problem it’s about so many people.

Kevin Carmody (05:22)
So how are you affected by this day-to-day? We talked about going in the road. Do you think you could explain this in some way to the drivers who almost certainly don’t know the impact that they’re having?

Aideen (05:36)
For many drivers, I think parking on the pavement feels minor. They think I’m only going to pop into that shop. I’m only going to be two minutes.

and they think that’s a case. That’s how they describe what they’re doing. But for me, it’s coming…

I simply can’t carry on with my journeys. All of my projects I have to backtrack and find a drop kerb that I can get down on.

Kevin Carmody (06:42)
Yeah

Aideen (06:47)
All on bulging to the road with moving traffic so that small choice that they make to park on the road turns

The school runs into a really stressful obstacle course and like I said it’s not just wheelchair users, it’s parents with buggies It’s…

The visually impaired and older people and if the pavement is accessible it’s not a pavement anymore.

Kevin Carmody (07:58)
No,

no, Yeah, so I mean, I certainly remember this around, you know, school pick up and drop off. It’s that when you’ve got the kid, you’ve got the kids, then you’ve got the parents are mounting the kerbs they’re I remember having to say to having to say to my my boy, you can’t go outside the school straight away and walk on pavement because it’s just not safe.

because there’s people getting up onto the kerb there. ⁓ I mean, you’ve got children, I mean, you’re saying you’re going on a school run, you’ve got children, you’re taken to school. How do you talk to them about these dangers?

Aideen (08:24)
Yeah. ⁓

I mean they’re at an age now where they can see what’s happening. They can see that I just can’t get past. And my youngest boy will often comment, ⁓ Mommy can’t get past.

What are you going to do? And we talk about how the driver’s actions are putting me in danger and the kids are really aware and conscious of it. But what’s…

Kevin Carmody (09:22)
Yeah.

Aideen (09:33)
Part of me is that they’re seeing that danger normalized. They ask why cars are allowed to do it. And that’s a really tricky question when the answer

is basically but it’s easier for the driver

Kevin Carmody (10:10)
I mean, you’re right. It is is normalized, isn’t it is normalized behavior. And when you see everyone else doing it, you expect that’s that’s just what we all have to do. In the same way you see when you know, only need one or two people to be the first ones to go, we’re parking on the road here. And everyone, everyone follows suit after that. It’s Yeah. Okay, we’ve talked about the dangers of you.

Aideen (10:30)
Yeah.

Kevin Carmody (10:37)
having to go into the road, it is something we do also need to consider that the pavements themselves are designed for pedestrians, not vehicles, and they increasingly will become damaged by these heavy cars driving on them. And we see this with the paving slabs or getting uneven and these are things that they need to be.

paid for by the council to fix them because you know they become increasingly a danger for people who are using them. I mean what what are the states of the pavement near you? Do you you notice that?

Aideen (11:11)
I do put a lot of dead cracked to display under all the books and often, like you said, a lot of that is caused by cars repeatedly, mounting the pavement Pavements aren’t

built to hold the weight of vehicles. So when car go on them day after day they degrade quicker and for wheelchairs users small changes in level

really matter, so a broken slab

on a steep incline is not cosmetic. It can make a difference between independence and being totally stuck

Kevin Carmody (12:40)
Yeah,

So pavement parking, as say, it’s not just an inconvenience problem. It is an accessibility issue and pushing vulnerable people into road and damaging the space is really, it’s no surprise that for a lot of people, they just can’t even then leave their home. I think obviously we’d like people to just be more considerate.

But really it is legislation that’s needed to actually tackle this. In London, they’ve had a pavement parking ban in place since 1974. Scotland started the process in 2019 ⁓ where they gave a lot of councils an opportunity to implement pavement parking bans with exceptions. think Edinburgh went with a no exceptions approach. ⁓

I it’s really it’s time to be to get those same protections in law for all the rest of the UK rather than just London or devolved powers Scotland. So with that said, highways and council engineers can use ⁓ traffic regulation orders or TROs. I know there is one across the whole of Birmingham, but it needs to then be enforced with signs which cost money to.

put signs everywhere and they have to be well maintained signs. So again, it’s like a burden that not having a national ban puts on councils, which as we say, are cash strapped. Is there anything that you would say to your MP for the national ban or to your local councillors for implementing the TROs?

Aideen (14:25)
I honestly would encourage them to come up walk with me while we do the school run. I think in just 20 minutes they will…

be able to see the scale of the problem and how it impacts people like me every single day. And I would also say that you are banned in London and Scotland

it is acceptable and workable then why not the rest of the UK? I don’t think this is radical at the end of the day disabled people

shouldn’t have fewer rights depending on their postcode you know. And I would just say to councillors don’t wait, you’ve got the powers to influence.

Kevin Carmody (15:58)
Yeah.

Aideen (16:15)
Use them now enforce it consistently Design streets properly and listen to disabled residents before someone gets seriously hurt.

Kevin Carmody (16:42)
Yeah.

Aideen (16:43)
Just to be that it isn’t optional, it’s a basic right for disabled people.

Kevin Carmody (16:59)
Yeah, it’s a responsibility that councillors, MPs, the government should be taking seriously.

Aideen (17:06)
Absolutely

Kevin Carmody (17:08)
Yeah,

and it’s, you know, it’s to to ban pavement parking is a hugely popular policy. I mean, most people in the country want to see it happen. Yeah, quite quite why action hasn’t happened yet is it’s yeah, it’s it’s surprising. Okay. I think that’s everything that ⁓

Aideen (17:17)
Yes.

Kevin Carmody (17:33)
to cover today so I just wanted to say thank you very much for taking the time to talk to me. I would encourage everyone off the back of this to write to their councillor or MP to ask them to support because the government is due to be doing a review on this. Please write to your councillor and to your MP to ask them to support a ban on pavement parking throughout the UK. Thank you very much for your time, Aideen.

Aideen (17:59)
Thank you so much for having me.

Kevin Carmody (18:04)
Thank you very

Kevin Carmody (18:11)
Thank very much for listening. ⁓ If you’d like to know more about the Living Streets campaign that Aideen has been working with, ⁓ you can visit them at livingstreets.org.uk. There you can learn about not just their pavement parking campaign, you can also read more of Aideen’s story and you can submit images of particularly egregious parking that you might see around the place. You can also join the Better Streets campaign where we…

campaign for walking, wheeling and cycling around Birmingham and that’s at betterstreetsforbirmingham.org. Thank you very much, look forward to seeing you again next time.