5. Statement by the Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport: Tackling Pavement Parking

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:46 pm on 13 October 2020.

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Photo of Lee Waters Lee Waters Labour 5:46, 13 October 2020

I agree with that. This is clearly going to be—you know, it's taken decades for us to get this position and it's going to take time to change the culture and to put in place the investment and to rebalance the investment towards measures that discourage car use and encourage more modal shift. So, this isn't going to happen with a click of the fingers.

Let's be clear about what this power is about. Not everybody who parks on the pavement does so because they don't have an alternative. Some people park on the pavement because they're inconsiderate, because they haven't thought about what it's like to be a mother with a pushchair or a partially sighted person who can't get around. And as we become more car dependent, fewer people know what it's like to be without a car to get around under their own steam.

And this is also a poverty issue. We know that in the poorest 20 per cent of households, a quarter of people are overdependent on car transport. Sorry, I've got that wrong, Presiding Officer. In the bottom 20 per cent of households, people spend something like a quarter of their income on running cars. And, increasingly, we are forcing people who can't afford it to get cars, because we have created an environment where that's the only way they can get about. This has got to be seen as part of a broader movement of shifting that, through addressing this transport poverty, addressing the inequalities. We're essentially saying to people on lower incomes, 'You can stick with substandard bus services' or, 'You can walk on cluttered streets'.

Part of our intervention is for creating a fairer society as well as a society that tackles the blights of air pollution, obesity and climate change. So, to David Rees's point: it's really important that we do this right and sensitively and bring people with us. This is not a measure designed to penalise people. We've got to help people to make the change, and that requires multiple interventions. But, also, we need to remind people that if they do things that are antisocial and disadvantage people who are vulnerable, then there's a penalty to be paid.