Congleton Road: Accident waiting to happen

Hi Kevin , i also have mentioned this dangerous parking good for you taking a picture.

i drive up and down that road everyday and some of the oncoming cars are too close for comfort because of the parked cars. It is only a matter of time before there is an accident.

walked through the village this afternoon (Sunday) and sure enough there was a line of cars parked outside the DeTrafford so surely these cannot be workers parking all day for free.

Coming into the village on Sunday afternoon from Chorley Hall Lane was a nightmare, what's the council going to do something before its too late? Chorley Hall Lane also needs strict parking restrictions with lazy fosters customers dumping cars on the already narrow road on the double yellows! Driving up Macclesfield Road there were cars abandoned everywhere this afternoon on the pavements despite police signs - the council could have made a fortune in parking tickets with all these lazy thoughtless people parking wherever they like. Something needs to be done and quick!

Seems other people agree with my observation .
On the basis that the introduction of double yellow lines makes sense, improving visibility and road safety I guess the next step is to raise the matter with Cheshire East Council and the Police. Perhaps also involve the local Parish Council. Interesting to see if common sense prevails once the suggestion is raised with officials and a quick fix can hopefully be made.
I can't take credit for the photo , possibly another great local pic from the Reeves library?

Can the road marking team not just extend the double yellow lines onto Congleton Road. Surely it does not need the police and the Council to be involved.

Sadly there are some very selfish and thoughtless people in Alderley Edge who seem to think they have every right to park their car where it suits THEM. I guess its human nature to pull your car up to be outside somewhere you are only going to be a few minutes visiting, like the chip shop. I don't know many people who would drive around trying to find a space to park just to grab some take out chips so people are bound to take that risk.

Some days I wonder why I bother to be a considerate road user when all around seem not to care and get away with it time and time again.

People are quite within their right to park on Congleton road as it has not been subject to any Traffic Regulation Order.

The best thing that people can do is speak to highways at Cheshire East as it will need to go through a long lengthy process.

TROs have associated administrative and legal costs, as well as the cost of implementing the scheme on the road. The processes involved in making a TRO can be complex and it can take up to 12 months in most cases.

TROs go through formal consultation procedures with local parish, town or district councils and the emergency services. Official notices have to be published in the local press and are also posted "on street" to invite comments from the general public.

A single unresolved objection requires that the TRO is considered by CE's Rights of Way Sub Committee and their recommendation has to be confirmed by the Executive Committee before any order can be introduced.In some cases, depending on the contents of the TRO, any unresolved objections may lead to a public inquiry.

Until appropriate lining and signing has been completed on site, the TRO cannot come into force. Under the Road Traffic Act, the Police/Traffic Wardens have little authority until it has come into force.

Thanks James, how interesting. TRO's sound great fun. Quite a process you describe ,but worth the journey. I'm happy to start the crusade. It's by no means impossible and it's right for the village to be safer. I may need a liitle help along the way! Watch out for double yellows in a years time!

So, we have have a RTA lower down causing a death, we have had a near fatal accident involving a cyclist being run down by a car just up the road from the De Trafford, whats going to happen in 12 months ?

Get me a brush and some paint !

Jon I will come and join you with the brush and paint. Perhaps we could have it done in oh say 15 minutes. After reading the above explanation I now need to have a lie down. All that carry on for a few yellow lines.

James is mostly right about the process, although CE do seem to have speeded it up a bit. (It's not Rights of Way that deal with this - now it seems to be dealt with by the Portfolio holder, before it was the Local Highways Committee ).

But - there is no point in getting your paintbrush out - the lines need to be legally enforceable and that is why there is a process.

Frankly, ( oops - bad pun ) you need to get Cllr Keegan onside and to press for any lines you want. Personally, I would still like to see a proper highways engineer undertake a full parking review of Alderley Edge - this was planned when the bypass was in its early stages but appears to have been dumped now by CEC. We are left with piecemeal changes to the parking in the village - with no strategic plan - cars do not vanish when you put in yellow lines, they just move. Where will all these cars pop up next ??

As for Sundays - CEC do not employ wardens on a Sunday - so you can park anywhere with alacrity.

The issue is far wider that just Congleton Road. I drop my daughter off at the junior school in the village every day and there is a car which parks right at the top of Church Lane making it very difficul to turn in.This morning I saw the chap parking and asked him why he parks there as its a hazard - you guessed it - because its free. The epidemic has spread as far as Blackshaw lane where at least 8 cars park on a daily basis. It needs to be sorted!

Double yellow lines don't work out outside Costa!
The good thing about the current 1 hour parking in Alderley is that there is a regular churn of cars so shoppers can find a place to park when they want to. Before the one hour rule (and the associated traffic wardens policing the rules) much of the parking was used by the workers parking all day. But, they still need somewhere to park all day that's reasonably handy to their place of work. And outside the de Trafford is one of those place. Perhaps insufficient thought was put into the needs of people needing to park all day when the 1 hour rule was brought in.

Yellow lines are not the only way of controlling parking. There is also an offence of dangerous parking, which attracts not only a fine but 3 points on the licence. This offence includes for instance parking within 10 metres of a junction, and parking in a position where passing traffic would have to cross a solid white line in the middle of the road. The closest two cars in the photograph are almost certainly illegally parked, and the registration of one is clearly visible. Also, cars are now regularly parked on Congleton Road opposite a solid white line, which also happens to be near a brow of the hill, another offence. I suspect that parking on the yellow lines outside Gusto is also classed as dangerous parking, perhaps somebody could confirm that. By the way, dangerous parking is still a matter for police enforcement, even if other parking control has been transferred to the council.

Don't forget your history, the one hour limitations on London Road and some adjoining roads has been in place for ages - certainly more than 10 years. The problem was that the police were the authority who were responsible for enforcement and that was one area that they simply abandoned. So, to all intents, parking in the village up until about 2006 / 7 was wholly unrestricted. It had been like that for some time and the situation, although not satisfactory, was stable. Now we have enforcement - and people are running around trying to find new places to park. Sadly, as I commented above, there does not look like there will be a wholesale parking review - rather a piecemeal approach to parking in the village. We cannot expect the police to deal with dangerous parking - they will only do this occasionally. So - we are left chasing cars around the village and that is like herding cats.

Parking near to the schools is an entirely different and more difficult issue. At least with workers parking, they want to park in the same place all day and leave their car unattended. That makes them susceptable to enforcement, Moms in their chelsea tractors tend not to leave the car unattended and so can simply drive off if approached by an enforcement officer, I can think of no way of controlling their entirely selfish, inconsiderate and positively dangerous antics. If anyone has a solution to this conundrum ( and as a conundrum, its up there with Justin Bieber and eggnog ) please post it here.

Marc, You say that we cannot expect the police to deal with dangerous parking. Why not? I expect them to deal with accident prevention just as I expect them to deal with crime prevention. It's a false economy to say that we cannot afford the resource for prevention. We all pay for that false economy ultimately through our insurance premiums, which are going up far more than inflation.

It is not anti social, nor is it abuse of parking restrictions as there are none in place. It is merely people trying to use the village for either work or to use its facilities. I thought the death of the village was down to Tesco alone,obviously not.

Paul Wharton's comments are true that people park there because they can with little or no likelihood of penalty as there are no restrictions in place. My point when asking the original question was to see if other people had experienced similar difficulties at the junction with visibility obscured when attempting to join the Congleton Road from Chorley Hall Lane. I felt double yellow lines made sense but had no knowledge of the convoluted process to secure the introduction.The comments here have helped me reach a personal decision to speak with the Council about it. I will also contact local Councillors for their valued opinion. Thanks for Marcing my card Mr Asquith ( even worse pun). Frankly, nothing to do with supermarkets, just a plain and simple idea to make the village safer . No politics, no hidden agenda, just safety. I will be active on this next week.

Just wanted to mention also the shaven-headed chap I encountered in his Peugeot on Tuesday evening. He slammed his brakes on, failed to indicate and parked directly outside the chip shop at 6.54 pm causing me to stop behind him thinking he stopped because something was in his way. But no he was parking! Thanks for the verbal abuse and advice when I spoke to you pointing out your parking offence and selfish stance, thanks also for the threats. My trusty Canon digital camera functioned well to reveal a clear registration number , you and your chips very clearly.

Time to review parking arrangements and bring in speed control measures. I had envisaged the new bye-pass would signal the recreation of a village atmosphere.

I think the De Trafford has a new manager, now could be a good time for AEPC to write to the pub just to make sure that persons using the pub are not parking on the road.

Alan, that's the way it is, they gave up on parking enforcement and the solution was to pass it to councils. At the Highways Committee before the change to CEC everytime we wanted a new speed limit somewhere Sgt Ian Holly, the attending police officer would oppose it on the basis that there would be no additional resources to enforce such a limit. If you can work out any way to make the police accountable to the local population, ur a smarter man than me, the current elected members of the Police Authority go native within 30 seconds of appointment. Maybe an elected police commissioner is the solution ? Meantime - with the exception of our excellent CPSO - Jim - you cannot sensibly expect further enforcement of anything.

Marc, there's a difference between a parking offence and a traffic offence. Dangerous parking is a traffic offence. Surely our CPSO could issue a few tickets for dangerous parking, which might send out a message to others? Additionally, is it too much to expect that when a police patrol car sees an instance of dangerous parking they stop and do something about it rather than ignoring it?

Alan - Audi R8 parked outside Gusto at 11am today on double yellows (no blue badge) been there since I took my daughter to Wilmslow at 9am. CPSO outside Bar and Grill talking to people - no ticket issued. So don't reckon he will issue tickets for dangerous parking!!

The Highway Code states 'You MUST NOT leave your vehicle or trailer in a dangerous position or where it causes any unnecessary obstruction of the road.' and must not stop or park 'opposite or within 10 metres (32 feet) of a junction, except in an authorised parking space'. So markings or no markings the vehicles shown in the photograph are parked inappropriately. Which authority should be dealing with this ?

Whilst on the subject of parking when will the drivers of vehicles parked in the pedestrian crossing restricted zone (denoted by the zig-zag lines) be penalised ?

The picture above tells the story! (Editors Note: I've change the main photo for this article to the one just provided by Kelvin)

Some interesting parking witnessed outside the DeTrafford Arms on Congleton Road yesterday afternoon. A motorist had parked (some would say abandoned) a car some two feet in to the road facing up hill adjacent the junction with Chorley Hall Lane.

I photographed a bus coming down the hill into the village as it had to stop as a council commercial vehicle attemped to drive up Congleton Road. The result grid lock, no room for both vehicles to pass and the truck had to reverse back down the hill to let the bus through.

Some clear evidence that parking outside the De Trafford Arms is often dangerous and worthy of some fine or prosecution for causing an obstruction..