Crackdown on roadworks and bad parking wanted for Oldham

Transport bosses also want to bring in a ‘lane rental’ scheme, such as that in London, to reduce the amount of time roadworks are causing congestion on the roads – applying a daily charge to those working on many roads.

Active travel commissioner Dame Sarah Storey was speaking at an event in Stockport on Monday, where transport bosses set out a vision for 2,000 new pedestrian crossings and a further 1,170km of protected cycle paths by 2040.

Previously in the same role for the Sheffield City Region, Dame Sarah said she would like to try to bring over an initiative called ‘Operation Park Safe’ already being used there.

Under the initiative, members of the public in part of the city can report bad parking to the police through an online form. Vehicles parked on crossings, left in dangerous positions, or causing obstructions on the pavement are all liable to be dealt with by the police under the scheme.

Dame Sarah said: “When I was working in South Yorkshire, the Sheffield Operation Park Safe was something that I was discussing with them, so I was obviously delighted when it came in – I was not there by that point, but it was something that came in.

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“I’m working and talking closely with the police over in South Yorkshire about the best methods to bring it over here to Greater Manchester Police.

“Obviously, we’re only just over a year since the police force came out of special measures, so there’s a number of things that have been improved and changed since that point.

“Operation Avro has had a huge impact on the public transport network, and we relaunched Operation Close Pass in May of this year.

“So, there are other things that are in the pipeline, and the police are fully onboard as they know just how inconveniencing it is to have what people would describe as an abandoned vehicle on the footway, partially blocking the vehicle lane and fully blocking the vehicle lane.

“The police are up for discussing how we get to a mechanism that will enable us to do something like that and having the powers from the government to be able to do that. We’re still waiting for the response on the pavement parking consultation.

“As things don’t happen overnight, we’re still waiting for that, that would make life easier, but we’re obviously in discussion to make sure we have the mechanisms to do it more frequently and with ease here.”

Transport commissioner criticises 'unthinking behaviour'

Transport commissioner Vernon Everitt re-iterated the impact of poorly parked vehicles on peoples’ movement, and called on the government to give more powers to authorities to take action over problem parkers.

Transport commissioner Vernon Everitt (Image: TfGM)

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He said: “It’s certainly an issue, and in Oldham it’s one of the things that holds up the tram network.

“Where there are rules, we’ll enforce them, where people are parking illegally and we can move people along that’s what we’ll do.

“But I think some of the problem comes from just unthinking behaviour, where maybe you’re allowed to park or you’ve parked poorly, or half on the pavement sometimes, getting in the way of pedestrians.

“So, there are things we can get on with, and actually there’s a whole bunch of things we want to get on with on the road network, like introducing lane rental, which is something London has, where you can actually charge utilities to get on and off the road surface quickly, and penalise them where that doesn’t happen.

“I think the pavement parking element is part of a broader package of things that we need to do. Poor pavement parking, or poor parking generally, holds up cars.

“It’s not an anti-car thing, it holds up cars, it holds up public transport, it inconveniences people on the pavement.

“Where we’ve got rules, we’ll enforce them, but we would like some more enforcement powers to make some further progress.”

He added: “We are working very closely with Greater Manchester Police on contraventions and working together, indeed Greater Manchester Police actually sit in the control room at TfGM, so there’s really good partnership working getting underway there, but there’s always more we can do to make it better.”

Consultation results still not released

The Department for Transport ran a nationwide consultation on pavement parking in 2020, asking people whether a London-style prohibition on pavement parking should be introduced throughout England.

Other options included changes to allow local authorities to deal with the parking under civil powers, or to improve Traffic Regulations to allow authorities to prohibit pavement parking in certain areas.

However, the results of the consultation have still not been released.

In a parliamentary debate on pavement parking in March, then-transport minister Richard Holden said the Government is “determined to ensure that disabled people have the same access to transport as everyone else and that they can travel easily, with confidence and without extra cost.”

If you have a story, I cover the whole borough of Oldham. Please get in touch at jack.fifield@newsquest.co.uk or click to send me a message on WhatsApp or on Signal on 07517566383.