The York Council recently set up a working group to consider the problem of vehicles parking on grass verges.  The problem became worse between 2011 and 2015 when the – mainly ward committee funded -lay-by provision programme was suspended.

Now the provision of additional car parking is one of the top requests for the use of the newly restored local budgets.

The working group’s – somewhat long-winded interim report – has now been published.  The report comes to no final conclusion.

It has been obvious for some time that verges in vulnerable locations need to be strengthened.

The relativity new matrix protection systems are ideal as they retain the green appearance of the verges and allow water to drain through yet remain undamaged when cars park on them. 

They are the type of project that all Ward Committees should be getting on with quickly.

A lot of residents did contact the Council to complain about damage to verges and many of these are evidenced in an annex to the report.

Any resident driving over a verge to access an off street parking space does need to pay for a proper verge crossover. Some estate improvement grants are available to tenants who want to install one.

Otherwise the Council should construct one and bill the property owner.