§ Mr. Michael Spicerasked the Minister of Transport whether, in view of the fact that the parking of cars on pavements can be a hazard to pedestrians, particularly the blind and disabled, he proposes to bring forward legislation to make the practice illegal.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeSection 7 of the Road Traffic Act 1974 already makes provision for a national ban on footway parking beside urban roads, but, although we are very conscious that such parking can be a hazard to blind and disabled pedestrians, amongst others, my right hon. Friend has decided, for the reasons given in his reply to my hon. Friend the Mem-750W ber for Harrogate (Mr. Banks) on 27 July—[Vol. 971, c. 631–32]—that it is necessary to defer implementation of section 7.
However, yellow line waiting restrictions apply to the footway as well as the carriageway, and there are other powers to control footway parking. Heavy goods vehicles are prohibited from parking on all footways under the Heavy Commercial Vehicles (Controls and Regulations) Act 1973. Both dangerous parking and obstruction are offences, and local authorities have power to ban parking on individual lengths of footway. In addition, we are doing what we can in the present circumstances to discourage footway parking by giving publicity to the inconvenience it causes.