No Parking – Kingbur Place

Village Parking near Kingbur Place

Fear not Turnpike Field organisers, that spectacular green space that has become a haven for quarantined Audlemites to skip gaily amongst the wildflowers during these long periods of isolation, will no longer be required for extra parking as most of the village's visitors appear to have decided that the entry to Kingbur Place is much handier and closer to the Coop and other village shops, enabling those exhaustingly heavy shopping bags to only be lugged a few yards! Oh? You're only buying a sandwich? That's fine too!

We realise we are only newcomers to Audlem, most of us have only lived here for eleven years, and that we should hold our heads high in grateful delight at being accepted into the community so well, but I fear we missed the paragraph in our leases which explained that we were now living in Colditz and may struggle to leave unless we tunnelled under the archway and popped up somewhere close to the funeral parlour? At this rate that may be very apt!

I was deeply touched the other day, whilst vainly scanning around two cars parked on double yellow lines at the entrance to Kingbur Place, before exiting – or as we residents like to call it 'taking our life into our own hands' – only for a sleek, shiny four by four to park immediately in front of me. This blocked any small chance that I may have had of a soupçon of a clear view.

I apologetically wound down the window of my clearly inferior car and explained that she was parked on double yellow lines and that my view was now completely blocked. Whilst I pondered about how Stevie Wonder would have dealt with such a situation, the considerate lady car owner alighted from her car and proceeded to stand in the middle of the road and guide me out! I thanked her profusely as I wiped the sweat from my brow, having survived yet another daily hazard whilst leaving my home. She, on the other hand, just popped into the Coop without moving her car.

Sometimes I feel I should apologise for even parking my car in front of my house in its' designated spot, as I am clearly upsetting those people who happily turn into Kingbur looking for further parking and leave in disgust as we, the trapped residents, have been unable to leave our personal enclave as our entrance is blocked.

We work really hard to make our window boxes and front gardens look attractive, not for the 'Best Village in Bloom' contest, but because we realise it was inconsiderate of us to have a 'No Parking Residents Only' sign erected when the houses and apartments were built and we are glad that some of you choose to ignore it and happily park to enjoy your Coop sandwiches in our leafy space! We're thinking of setting up trestle tables and serving cream teas!

Now, on a more serious note. We have tried by various means to have our parking problems investigated. We have approached the Police, the Parish Council and Cheshire East and still nothing has happened. We are praying that this is not going to be another case of nothing will be done until an accident actually occurs. We have several elderly people living here and should we need to call for help, it is highly likely that an ambulance or fire engine will be unable to get through.

Just think, Audlem has recently suffered graffiti outbreaks and we have all muttered in sheer disbelief that such a thing could happen in our village.

Teenagers often do not think wisely before they take an action. They become the attention seekers who rebel in society in order to be noticed and recognised. Young people usually tend to follow the bad behaviour of their peers, which leads me to ask the question 'why does poor and clearly obstructive parking become an acceptable misdemeanour?' and 'why are some villagers setting our youngsters such bad examples?'

How should we communicate when angry and displeased with thoughtless parking? Should we turn up the rage button a notch or try to kill the problem with politeness? Now if we are annoyed with someone's driving and parking abilities, or lack of, should we chose the classical honking and swearing or do we smile and nod at the idiots?

Violence is not the answer, swapping one misdemeanour for another is no help, the right way to shame such schmucks is a passive aggressive or downright polite post it note on their windshields, hoping that the thoughtless jackass has some consciousness in their tiny brain.

I think I may approach Joe from Audlem Printers for ideas such as ' Thanks for parking across our exit. It gives me the chance to be a movie star and slide across your car bonnet looking awesome!' Or ' That's quite a parking job, I assume you did it blindfolded?' I can think of a few worse ones, but I realise AoL is read by children.

All we ask is the courtesy of considering how and where you are parked when shopping in the village. It doesn't take a minute, but it may save a life.

Afterthought;

If you come back to your car and there's a little yellow ticket on the windscreen saying 'Parking Fine'........it wasn't!

If aliens searching for intelligent life saw some of our parking, they would leave!