The Ipswich grass verge debate

On Monday 3rd April 2017 BBC radio Suffolk had picked up on the story about grass verges being torn up by car parking, and there will be a crack down on people parking in the verges and pavements in some areas in Ipswich.

The Ipswich Star covered the story at the end of the previous week, highlighting the various problems with pavement parking.

As someone who doesn’t have a motor vehicle in the household and has a toddler who is walking about,  sometimes in a buggy, pushing her buggy, walking beside me while I’m pushing my bike before or after my commute; or now starting to use her trike; I find pavement and grass verge parking particularly inconsiderate as it can be difficult to get past.

One of the comments by Mark Murphy was “there’s no chance that we’ll ditch our car any time soon”. I found this highly ironic when Ipswich Star on the very same day launched their excellent Ditch the Car campaign.

It also prompted me to check the stats on the car or van availability from the last census in 2011 to see what proportion of people in Ipswich and Suffolk don’t have access to a car. The results table “KS404EW – Car or van availability” has the information and is available on the Nomis part of the Office for National Statistics site.

Within Ipswich 27.8% of households have no access to a car or van, which is a rather significant proportion likely due to the closeness of various amenities such as schools, shops, and work to where people live, and the frequent local bus service.

For Suffolk the percentage of households without a car is lower at 17.9%.

I very much look forward to the success of the Ipswich Star’s Ditch the Car campaign and seeing the number of households without a car increasing in the next census.