Parking Standards for New Developments Draft (Nov 2022)

The main reason a lot of people do not use their garages or car ports to store cars is that the garages and car ports attached to new houses are narrower than the majority of cars. I have seen one garage on a new development in Central Bedfordshire in recent years that was about two thirds of the width of my Skoda Fabia and I cannot believe that it even met the minimum requirements for the development, yet it had presumably been signed off by the building inspector. Size of garages matters, just as it does for outdoor parking spaces. With the width of modern cars, spaces need to be wider than most garages are built at the moment. A lot of modern houses are also too small to be fit for purpose. Therefore, people are forced to use garages for storage, and for washing machines, freezers, etc. If storage, and spaces for white goods were incorporated into the design of buildings, and garages were bigger, fewer outside parking spaces would be needed. Secondly, one parking space is not enough for a small house with one bedroom if that bedroom is used by 2 people, who both have to drive to work in different directions or on different shift patterns. This means effectively, all visitor spaces and all available space in the surrounding streets have to be clogged up with cars. Another thing to bear in mind is that some visitors to residential properties stay overnight or even for a week or two, and need overnight parking and long stay secure cycle parking. If all cars are going to be electric in future, all long stay parking spaces, and a good proportion of short stay parking will need charging points.