As a follow up to my post on Motorhome Parking in the UK and the difficulties we have, check out the Number 10 Downing Street . gov site.

A petition entitled “We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Make Local Authorities throughout United Kingdom allocate ‘Motorhome Only’ Spaces in Local Authority Car parks” was sent into the government.

The details of the petition are below;

“Motor home users pay their Road Tax, pay their insurance, MOT their vehicles and I hope are law abiding citizens. Many are retired or approaching retirement and have a lot of money to spend in your towns and villages. However when it comes to parking our vehicles on local authority car parks we are in the main locked out, restricted by height barriers or penalised for having larger than average vehicles. If we take up two car park spaces we pay two charges. This does not stop local parking wardens issuing fixed penalty tickets because they state we are not parking our vehicles within the confines of a parking bay. Many of us would love to visit and shop in the local town or village whilst touring the country in the summer months but are stopped from doing so by the lack of provision from the local authorities. Let us park on your car parks and we will spend money in your shops and contribute to your economy.”

The petition was put forward by James Gibson and had 1,648 signatures and the cut off date was 30 May 2007.

This is the governments response;

Thank you for your petition suggesting that the Government should require Local Authorities to allocate ‘motorhome only’ spaces in local authority car parks.

It is for local authorities and individual traffic authorities, to decide on the allocation of spaces to particular classes of road user in their car parks. They have to do this in light of the many competing demands for such space, and the requirements of the local population. This judgement of the right balance is rightly a matter for local authorities who are much better placed than central Government to make the relevant assessments. The Government, however, encourages local authorities to consider the views of their local communities. Information on how parking is managed is available on the DfT website.

At the moment, the Government has no plans to change this arrangement, and it would in fact require primary legislation to force local authorities to provide off-street spaces for motorhomes. It is, however, already possible (but not mandatory) for traffic authorities to reserve on-street spaces for motorised caravan or caravans drawn by motor vehicles where there is a local demand for this and where appropriate space is available.

With regards to height restrictions at local authority off-street car parks, height barriers are used to prevent unsuitable vehicles, such as heavy goods vehicles using car parks. Whilst the Government cannot comment on the merits of individual councils’ polices, we believe that local authorities are acting within their legal powers to erect such barriers. It is possible that councils may be prepared to review their policy on these barriers following representation from local communities.

Given that 18 months has now passed since the petition and knowing how much the awareness of this issue has risen and that the number of Motorhome owners has increased maybe it’s time in organise another one.