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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
National
Charlotte Hadfield & Ramazani Mwamba

Cars dumped outside homes near Liverpool Airport as families jet away on holiday

Residents living near an airport have blasted holidaymakers for causing chaos in their neighbourhood.

PEople living on Hale Road and Hale Drive in Speke say area has become a popular drop off point for families travelling to and from Liverpool John Lennon Airport to avoid parking charges.

Locals however, say the parked cars are causing havoc in the area with noise and litter issues with some saying they have seen people urinating in private gardens.

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As reported in the ECHO, under the airport's current car parking charges it costs £4 for someone to park directly opposite the terminal for up to ten minutes, with this rising to £10 for 20 minutes and £25 for up to an hour.

However, Liverpool Airport said there is also a free drop-off point which is around the same distance away by foot from the airport terminal as Hale Road, and is free for up to 40 minutes, increasing to £8 for an hour.

Anthony Brown, 73, who has lived in the area for the last 31 years, told the ECHO: "It's very frustrating. They park in between ours and next door's car and you can't get your car out.

"It varies each day - it's early morning and late at night. You get nothing and then there's a typhoon [of cars], it seems to be happening when you're sitting down watching something or reading."

Anthony has moved his bedroom into the back room of his house due to the noise of people parking outside his house to catch flights in the early hours and late at night.

He said: "The noise - I've had to move into the back bedroom. It's going to affect the house prices, they're not high anyway in Speke. I go out for 20 minutes, come back and can't park outside my house, I have to go and park down the road.

"It's not just dropping people off, they go in [the airport] with them and they might stay there until the flight's gone. They go and someone else comes in."

Residents have reported people parking on double yellow lines, on the central reservation and across driveways (Liverpool echo)

Anthony said some drivers are also dumping rubbish, from McDonald's and KFC wrappers to beer bottles, in the area after dropping people off. He has also witnessed a woman urinating on the central reservation and a man urinating in a front garden.

He added: "They leave trollies where cars normally park - anything like that we push over the road into the airport boundary where the buses come in. Sometimes you come out and there's three or four trollies, they might be there for a day or two."

Anthony said he has contacted Liverpool City Council a number of times over the last six years but the problems with parking still remain. He would like the council to impose parking permits for residents and have more traffic wardens patrolling the area to crack down on the amount of drivers parking illegally.

Michael Cox, 52, said he decided to move out of his home on Hale Road four years ago due to the amount of people parking in the area to access the airport and the noise this was creating.

A ticketed car on Hale Road (Liverpool echo)

Michael said: "They were parking across your driveway. I said to them 'you're parking across my driveway' and they said 'I'll only be 10 minutes.'

"You're inundated with 60/70 cars a day. They're sitting there for two hours sometimes."

An Airport spokesperson said: “We share resident’s frustration over the behaviour of some drivers who choose to park on public roads close to the airport when picking up or dropping off passengers, when we have on site car parks specifically designated for this use.

"This includes a free drop-off car park for those who do not want to pay for the convenience of being close to the terminal, with parking available for up to 40 mins free of charge.

"This is just a short walk from the terminal but a similar distance away compared to where cars parking on the local public roads are, plus our car park has a shelter for passengers waiting to be picked in poor weather.

"Unfortunately because some cars choose to park on public roads outside of the airport, we have no control on parking in these areas or on measures to deter drivers from parking here.

"We have had discussions with residents, local councillors and the City Council in the past to look at ways to tackle this problem and to deter such parking but sadly this continues to be a problem.”

Liverpool City Council told the ECHO highways officers will go out to monitor the situation at Hale Road.

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