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Dear Gary,
We live in a cul-de-sac of 12 houses. About two years ago, the council decided to paint double yellow lines along our road, except opposite our house and our immediate neighbours on both sides, so three houses in all.
Our road is not very wide and two cars cannot pass each other. Therefore, when vehicles are parked opposite (there are no restrictions regarding time, so in theory a large camper van might be there for hours), accessing our driveway becomes difficult. We often have to do a double shunt to get in and out.
The local highways department has been very high-handed in dealing with our concerns, even though we pay the same council tax as our neighbours who do have double yellow lines opposite their homes. They argue that there should be access to a footpath which leads to the local beach. However, there is parking nearby where the houses do not have driveways.
We have done everything the council/highways have requested, including getting all nine other householders to vote for us and our neighbours to get double yellow lines, but the powers that be keep moving the goalposts.
Our houses are opposite a nature reserve, and last year a vandal started two wildfires 10 days apart. We had five fire engines sent to deal with it. We assumed that having parked vehicles on our road leading to difficult access for emergency vehicles would help our cause, but still our request for double yellow lines in front of our house has been declined.
Is there any legal loophole we can leverage?
– Linda
Dear Linda,
I am not aware of a legal loophole you can seize on to force your local highways authority to give you the yellow lines you are seeking. But what strikes me from the history of the situation you describe is that the process you have been subject to warrants scrutiny.
This is because there is a legal obligation on the local authority to reach any decision fairly, consistently and for the right reasons. Hence, I would spend less time arguing for double yellow lines and more time asking for an explanation of exactly why your house and two others on your cul-de-sac have been treated differently from the other nine.
Go back to the beginning and delve into the formal history of what happened when the yellow lines were first put down. The history matters, because that is the starting point of the process.
Documents should exist to say why yellow lines were thought necessary in the first place, as well as whether there was a consultation, whether there were objections and why three houses (including yours) were in effect missed out.
A key source document is likely the original Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) under which parking restrictions on the cul-de-sac were imposed. This document may reveal the highways authority had perfectly good and justified reasons. But whatever reasons were originally given, the original justification may well be ripe for revisiting in light of the events which have since played out (including the wildfire incident and emergency vehicle access issues).
The TRO should also refer to the highway authority’s criteria for yellow lines. Again, ask to see these criteria. If the published criteria say, for example, that restrictions may be introduced where parked vehicles impede access, prejudice emergency access or create road safety concerns, then you may legitimately question why the space outside your house doesn’t satisfy those criteria. If the authority has departed from its own policy, it should explain why.
You should also focus on why yellow lines exist along the rest of the cul-de-sac but stop opposite three driveways. If the justification is preserving access to the beach footpath, I would be asking why that requires unrestricted parking opposite only these three houses, and why isn’t nearby unrestricted parking sufficient? Relevant to this is that local authorities have a duty to be consistent in their approach. Yes, they can treat locations differently, but they should be able to explain why.
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The emergency vehicle access issues shown by the response to last year’s wildfires are not a knockout punch to the local authority, but if you and other residents specifically raised emergency access following an actual incident involving five fire engines, I would expect to see evidence that the local authority considered it. If it simply ignored you, that’s potentially a flaw in the decision-making process.
Access issues regarding your own driveway are also relevant. You describe having to do a complicated manoeuvre, which of course is frustrating. But where it becomes an issue for the local highways authority to consider is whether your access goes beyond difficult and into being obstructed or otherwise made unsafe.
A phrase you use that jumps out is that you say they “keep moving the goalposts”. If this is true, and you have evidence of the shifting position of the local authority, this again will help indicate inadequate reasoning or inconsistent decision-making.
Inconsistency is fertile ground for a formal complaint, first to the local authority itself and, if not resolved, to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, a free service that investigates complaints about such bodies.
The ombudsman will not ask or consider the question of whether there should be yellow lines. Rather, it will consider whether the local authority reached its decision not to put them in front of your house fairly. These are two very different questions and, as I say, it seems to me your most likely way to seek legal redress is about process, not the yellow lines themselves.
– Gary
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