dave m wrote: ↑15 May 2019 09:11
Parking around that entire area is permit only. You'll need to walk a pretty long way to find a local place for local people
You can park just up off the Henley Road or alike. 20 min walk to get the car as and when you need it.
Like I say. It's a common thing in London. People who don't have a permit to park their cars, park them in residential areas with no restrictions. They probably use public transport for work in the week and go and get their car for use at the weekend. So their car will be sat in that road all week which can be a nuisance. It all has a knock on effect somewhere.
Jude wrote: ↑13 May 2019 18:44
Seriously though, before the rail bridge over Vastern Road was widened a few years ago, there was actually a publicly accessible footpath along the town side of it, possibly little known about/used. I feel a path could (should?) be tagged onto BOTH sides of the bridge now instead of the two pelican (or whatever) crossings there, the sourtherly of which was only put in after the 'footbridge' was removed. I realise the bridge is probably as wide as can be to still allow double decker buses under, but the new paths can be at a slightly higher level than the tracks thus still allowing this.
Just thinking of this right now as the development very probably will block this happening, atleast on that side of the tracks, but could be an integral part of the development though, even if only accessible by residents.
Isn't there still a path from adjacent to the bridge to the station, behind Apex plaza ?
From the new flats it would be best to stay north of the railway to get to the station, I think. Use the crossing and then walk between the car park and the railway to the north entrance. Or use the zip wire, although this would be hard work on the return journey.
I think the zip wire is a great idea, at least for the morning commute to the station. Straight from the top of the tower to the station platform in seconds, and guaranteed to wake you up as well. Guaranteed to get the development a lot of free publicity too.
dave m wrote: ↑15 May 2019 09:11
Parking around that entire area is permit only. You'll need to walk a pretty long way to find a local place for local people
You can park just up off the Henley Road or alike. 20 min walk to get the car as and when you need it.
Like I say. It's a common thing in London. People who don't have a permit to park their cars, park them in residential areas with no restrictions. They probably use public transport for work in the week and go and get their car for use at the weekend. So their car will be sat in that road all week which can be a nuisance. It all has a knock on effect somewhere.
More and more residential streets in Caversham have applied to be permit only....no great surprise...
You have to search about but there are home owners renting their drive ways out at £100 a month around the TC. I’ve seen this before at away games at houses near football grounds, but not town centres for work etc.
dave m wrote: ↑15 May 2019 09:11
Parking around that entire area is permit only. You'll need to walk a pretty long way to find a local place for local people
You can park just up off the Henley Road or alike. 20 min walk to get the car as and when you need it.
Like I say. It's a common thing in London. People who don't have a permit to park their cars, park them in residential areas with no restrictions. They probably use public transport for work in the week and go and get their car for use at the weekend. So their car will be sat in that road all week which can be a nuisance. It all has a knock on effect somewhere.
More and more residential streets in Caversham have applied to be permit only....no great surprise...
Sensible. Although I do feel it will just shift the problem a little bit further out. It's no biggy if you only use your car now and again.
dave m wrote: ↑15 May 2019 09:11
Parking around that entire area is permit only. You'll need to walk a pretty long way to find a local place for local people
You can park just up off the Henley Road or alike. 20 min walk to get the car as and when you need it.
Like I say. It's a common thing in London. People who don't have a permit to park their cars, park them in residential areas with no restrictions. They probably use public transport for work in the week and go and get their car for use at the weekend. So their car will be sat in that road all week which can be a nuisance. It all has a knock on effect somewhere.
More and more residential streets in Caversham have applied to be permit only....no great surprise...
Sensible. Although I do feel it will just shift the problem a little bit further out. It's no biggy if you only use your car now and again.
If you only use a car now and again do you actually need to own a car? As an example I don’t have a DVD player but I can access any film I want via online streaming instantly.
I know a few people that own cars that barely use them. The primarily use them to visit relatives now and again at weekends or short breaks in the UK. Some of them probably only use their cars about twice a month/a handful of times a year. I suppose it's the knowing you have a car there if needs be rather than the hassle of having to hire one when you need it.
Tommy wrote: ↑16 May 2019 08:57
I know a few people that own cars that barely use them. The primarily use them to visit relatives now and again at weekends or short breaks in the UK. Some of them probably only use their cars about twice a month/a handful of times a year. I suppose it's the knowing you have a car there if needs be rather than the hassle of having to hire one when you need it.
And although owning a car is certainly expensive, the cost of hiring a car also adds up quite quickly if you do it for more than a handful of days a year. I'm not sure about these car club things though; most of the ones I've looked at seem to be London-only although admittedly that was probably two or three years ago.
I can see that eventually the UK will end-up going the way of places like Hong Kong and Singapore, and requiring proof of possession of an off-street parking space before allowing the registration of a car.
Tommy wrote: ↑16 May 2019 08:57
I know a few people that own cars that barely use them. The primarily use them to visit relatives now and again at weekends or short breaks in the UK. Some of them probably only use their cars about twice a month/a handful of times a year. I suppose it's the knowing you have a car there if needs be rather than the hassle of having to hire one when you need it.
And although owning a car is certainly expensive, the cost of hiring a car also adds up quite quickly if you do it for more than a handful of days a year. I'm not sure about these car club things though; most of the ones I've looked at seem to be London-only although admittedly that was probably two or three years ago.
I can see that eventually the UK will end-up going the way of places like Hong Kong and Singapore, and requiring proof of possession of an off-street parking space before allowing the registration of a car.
I've said this all along, too many have vehicles without any thought of where to put them, so they just dump them on the streets. Likewise any one household should only have ONE vehicle registered to that address. Where I live the roads are cluttered with parked vehicles & many properties resemble mini car showrooms. Then you add various company vans etc into the mix.................
There are a lot of properties near us who have 2 cars, however, they park one on the street and one in the drive, so they don't have to move their cars out of laziness.
It causes hold ups and it's near to a bus stop, so when the bus is there no traffic can get through. We always have our two cars in the drive and move them if necessary. Plus it eliminates the factors of someone vandalising it, scraping it or clipping your wing mirror.
The simple fact is nowadays on average people have to travel further to get to work - yes they may be able to work form home some of the time but at others they need to get to their office/site and many of those are in out of town locations poorly served by public transport. The rules are such that bus companies are not allowed to cross subsidise routes so for instance when the uni science park opens if the uni itself does not pay a subsidy to put on a bus service Reading Buses will only do it if they can see an immediate profit for the route, whilst we all know that some people can only take a job there if there is a bus service - hence the jobs are taken by those with own transport and thus there is no demand for a bus service and so it would not make money so no provision is made
If we want to reduce private car ownership then public transport needs to be a LOT more centrally organised and/or out of town estates need some form of tax hypothecated to pay for public transport links to that location and an expectation that provision of supply of transport links will likely predate the full take up of that service by at least a couple of years until people can learn of its existence, trust it's continence and work that into the employment decisions
buseng wrote: ↑16 May 2019 13:59Likewise any one household should only have ONE vehicle registered to that address. Where I live the roads are cluttered with parked vehicles & many properties resemble mini car showrooms. Then you add various company vans etc into the mix.................
What complete and utter nonsense. A friend of mine lives in the country in a big house. He and his wife both work in different areas. His mother-in-law lives in a "granny flat" attached to the house but is still very mobile, and his three grown-up children, who are all employed and therefore paying taxes to pay the pensions of the retired of this land, all live at home, and also need to drive to work. They have a four car garage and a driveway/hard standing where you can park at least a dozen more vehicles on their own land.There are six of them there, five of whom definitely need cars to get to and from work, and the sixth who uses one so that she can go shopping and go out and socialise with her friends and not be cooped up at home all day. And you think they should only have one car between them? What sort of communist nonsense is this?!
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A friend of mine lives in the country in a big house. There are six of them there, five of whom definitely need cars to get to and from work, and the sixth who uses one so that she can go shopping and go out and socialise with her friends and not be cooped up at home all day. And you think they should only have one car between them? What sort of communist nonsense is this?!
Why do they need cars? Is there not an ample supply of peasants to carry them?
KeithW wrote: ↑16 May 2019 17:13
Why do they need cars? Is there not an ample supply of peasants to carry them?
Nope. All the peasants have upped-sticks and moved to the towns and cities. That is why we need places like Swan Heights.
Neat finesse back on-topic
You're entirely right, Chris- my friend's daughter would love to move to a flat in the town where she works so she could walk or bus to the hospital rather than drive. But between the more affluent of the older generation driving up the prices by purchasing most of the existing stock for buy-to-let, and the local nimbies objecting to "more bloody flats", the cost of flats is ridiculous. And then the locals moan about the hospital being short of staff, when they're pretty much reaping what they've sown.
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buseng wrote: ↑16 May 2019 13:59Likewise any one household should only have ONE vehicle registered to that address. Where I live the roads are cluttered with parked vehicles & many properties resemble mini car showrooms. Then you add various company vans etc into the mix.................
What complete and utter nonsense. A friend of mine lives in the country in a big house. He and his wife both work in different areas. His mother-in-law lives in a "granny flat" attached to the house but is still very mobile, and his three grown-up children, who are all employed and therefore paying taxes to pay the pensions of the retired of this land, all live at home, and also need to drive to work. They have a four car garage and a driveway/hard standing where you can park at least a dozen more vehicles on their own land.There are six of them there, five of whom definitely need cars to get to and from work, and the sixth who uses one so that she can go shopping and go out and socialise with her friends and not be cooped up at home all day. And you think they should only have one car between them? What sort of communist nonsense is this?!
How did people manage in the days of "The Family Car"?
But [with] the more affluent of the older generation driving up the prices by purchasing most of the existing stock for buy-to-let [...] the cost of flats is ridiculous.
But [with] the more affluent of the older generation driving up the prices by purchasing most of the existing stock for buy-to-let [...] the cost of flats is ridiculous.
What sort of communist nonsense is this?!
It is a widely accepted (and demonstrable) fact that in the town in question, the vast majority of the flats are owned by non-occupiers, i.e they are owned by landlords who rent them out. The local intelligence from the various local estate agencies (and I appreciate that using the word "intelligence" in tandem with "estate agents" tends to jar) is that most of these landlords are members of the older generation who have bought these flats to provide an income source in their dotage.
These are basic statements of generally-accepted fact - if you could explain how such facts are "communist nonsense" I would be most grateful.
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It's not being affluent that makes people invest in property, often to provide a pension after various failed schemes like investment and endow ment mortgages.
It's not all gloom and doom though, the older generation tend to be spenders rather than savers and that's good for the economy
As far as Swan Heights is concerned I thought the whole thing was an investment property ? The flats will never be for sale ?
Obviously not all owners but I do know of a couple of professionals who cashed in all their pensions and bought half a dozen houses to rent to students. That was possibly 20 years ago.
However it's not new. When I was a kid the lady next door was in her 70's and 80's. Her income provided the funds to live in quite a nice house in a quiet street and came from a load of houses she owned around cemetery junction. I don't think she was rolling in it, but comfortable. This was the 60's/70's
Pooneil wrote: ↑17 May 2019 00:06
<snip buy-to-let stuff>
These are basic statements of generally-accepted fact - if you could explain how such facts are "communist nonsense" I would be most grateful.
I quite agree, the 'communist nonsense' bit was quoting you from an earlier post about limiting the number of cars per household. It seemed that state interference in notionally private affairs depends on who's being affected.
I'd like to see an additional road tax for those cars owners that don't utilise their driveways and decide to park their cars on the road instead because they're too lazy to move them.
Tommy wrote: ↑17 May 2019 09:31
I'd like to see an additional road tax for those cars owners that don't utilise their driveways and decide to park their cars on the road instead because they're too lazy to move them.
Tommy wrote: ↑17 May 2019 09:31
I'd like to see an additional road tax for those cars owners that don't utilise their driveways and decide to park their cars on the road instead because they're too lazy to move them.
They would make a mint around where I live then!
And here. Most have a couple of cars and can easily fit 2 or 3 cars in their drive but don't. They did start parking them in their drive for a short while when there was accident there and a car scraped the side of them. But now it's all back to normal again.
annap wrote: ↑17 May 2019 06:37
Oh is it "Blame Older People For Everything Week" again already? Comes round so quickly, doesn't it?
I'm not blaming older people, they're perfectly entitled to spend their money how they wish, and they're perfectly entitled to express their opinions. What I was trying to point out though is that when they entered in the buy-to-let market, they drove up the price of flats and houses. And when they object to more flats, whether it be because they want to protect the level of the rents they receive, or because they want to protect the existing nature of their town, one of the consequences of that is that it makes it harder for nurses and teachers and other public servants to live in their town. And when they complain that the hospital is short-staffed, or that their grandchildren's schools are short of staff, then they are in part the architect of these problems.
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Tommy wrote: ↑17 May 2019 08:00The main problem is too many people.
Because we demand a growing economy, which means more workers. And because we have a growing older population, which means we need more people to look after them, and more people working and paying taxes to pay their pensions. And that's not blaming older people for living longer, it's just a simple fact. We have promised these people pensions for life, and so we have to take in more tax to pay for it, which means we need more tax - which we can either do by having more and more people employed, or by taxing me and thee more.
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Pooneil wrote: ↑17 May 2019 12:45We have promised these people pensions for life, and so we have to take in more tax to pay for it, which means we need more tax - which we can either do by having more and more people employed, or by taxing me and thee more.
Or the individuals and corporations who currently dodge paying, legally or illegally.
Tommy wrote: ↑17 May 2019 08:00The main problem is too many people.
Because we demand a growing economy, which means more workers. And because we have a growing older population, which means we need more people to look after them, and more people working and paying taxes to pay their pensions. And that's not blaming older people for living longer, it's just a simple fact. We have promised these people pensions for life, and so we have to take in more tax to pay for it, which means we need more tax - which we can either do by having more and more people employed, or by taxing me and thee more.
Let's not forget though that pensioners do pay tax on their pensions.
Pooneil wrote: ↑17 May 2019 12:45We have promised these people pensions for life, and so we have to take in more tax to pay for it, which means we need more tax - which we can either do by having more and more people employed, or by taxing me and thee more.
Or the individuals and corporations who currently dodge paying, legally or illegally.
Lorraine Kelly. How the hell did she get away with that tax dodging?
Pooneil wrote: ↑17 May 2019 12:45We have promised these people pensions for life, and so we have to take in more tax to pay for it, which means we need more tax - which we can either do by having more and more people employed, or by taxing me and thee more.
Or the individuals and corporations who currently dodge paying, legally or illegally.
Lorraine Kelly. How the hell did she get away with that tax dodging?
Having read the actual details of the case from a tax law point of view, she actually had a pretty good case. The tabloid simplification that she avoided tax because she appears as a character rather than her actual self was a gross simplification. (Blimey, Fleet Street over-simplifying a story and thus creating uproar - that almost never happens )
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Tommy wrote: ↑17 May 2019 08:00The main problem is too many people.
Because we demand a growing economy, which means more workers. And because we have a growing older population, which means we need more people to look after them, and more people working and paying taxes to pay their pensions. And that's not blaming older people for living longer, it's just a simple fact. We have promised these people pensions for life, and so we have to take in more tax to pay for it, which means we need more tax - which we can either do by having more and more people employed, or by taxing me and thee more.
Let's not forget though that pensioners do pay tax on their pensions.
Not usually on their state pensions. Basic state pension from this April is £6,718.40 for a single person and £10,745.80 for a married couple. Standard personal allowance for income tax from April 2019 is £12,500 per person.
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