Painting yellow lines a waste of money

A few years ago, when Sanctuary Housing took over the running of the Shiregreen estate they decided to refurbish the pavements and also dug up the grass verges and re-laid them. This included the verges around Hartley Brook School.

If you looked at those verges on Gregg House Road today, you would find that all the work and money put into relaying the verges was a waste of time, because they are now becoming a churned-up mess due to people parking on them.

Today at 2.50pm when the children were coming out of the school I was walking down Gregg House Road and most houses near the school had a car parked across its driveway.

At the bottom of the road, near the main entrance to the school, a car was parked on the grass outside the school and within the yellow zigzag lines and the road marking saying “No Parking”, not only on the verge and churning up the grass, but clearly flaunting the law on road markings.

As I walked down the road a large police van was having difficulty turning right from Hartley Brook Road onto Gregg House Road because of vehicles close to the corner.

The police van drove up the road past the blocked driveways and the illegally parked car on the verge.

I thought perhaps they might park up and have a word with some of these drivers, but they didn’t.

I have a great deal of respect for our police officers and the pressure they are under with the cutbacks, and I know and understand that parking is not a priority these days.

However, by driving passed them they have given these drivers carte blanche to continue to stick their vehicles everywhere and anywhere, even on zigzag road markings, knowing that they are going to get away with it.

Quite frankly I would suggest that Sanctuary Housing send someone every day for a couple of months now and again to discreetly check on the people churning up the verges.

Then they could send these people a bill for repairing the verges, thus improving the environment on the estate, and saving the rest of us having to pay for any repairs out of our taxes.

I understand that parking restrictions, with yellow lines are due to come in next year around a few schools. I would save the paint money, because no one is going to enforce them.