Holidaymakers' families and friends trying to avoid steep airport parking charges are causing chaos by leaving their cars for hours in nearby residential side streets in order to drop off their passengers.
The problem has got so bad lately that locals say that some people, in efforts to make their flights and avoid parking fees, are pulling up over double yellow lines, across residents' driveways and even on the central reservations of dual carriageways. The growing practice is also said to be creating congestion, noise and rubbish issues in the area. Some locals say they have watched in disbelief as they witness people nipping into private gardens to urinate.
The issue, say residents, is getting increasingly worse at Liverpool's John Lennon Airport. Those living on Hale Road and Hale Drive in Speke said their streets have become popular drop-off points for motorists who want to avoid the airport parking charges.
The terminal's car parking operators charge £4 for someone to park directly opposite the terminal for up to 10 minutes, £10 for 20 minutes and £25 for up to an hour. Liverpool Airport claims there is a free drop-off point around the same distance away by foot from the airport terminal as Hale Road, but although that area is free for up to 40 minutes, charges then kick in at £8 an hour thereafter.
Anthony Brown, 73, who has lived in the area for the last 31 years, told the Liverpool 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."
It has forced Mr Brown to move into the bedroom at the back of his house due to the noise of people parking outside his house to catch flights in the early hours or late at night. He said: "The noise – 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. And when they eave, someone else comes in."
Mr Brown added that some drivers also dump at the kerbside the rubbish they have accrued during the journey to the airport, including McDonald's and KFC wrappers and even beer bottles. He said he even saw a woman squatting to urinate in the central reservation saw one man urinating in a neighbour's garden.
He said: "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 are three or four trollies. They might be there for a day or two."
He said he had contacted Liverpool City Council several times about the situation but the problems had not gone away. He added that he wanted to see the council issuing parking permits for residents and to deploy traffic wardens in the area to crack down on the amount of illegal parking.
Former resident 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 outside. "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," he said.
A spokesperson for the airport said: “We share residents’ 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 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 the cars parking on the local public roads are, plus our car park has a shelter for passengers waiting to be picked up 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 there.
"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 said that highways officers would go out to monitor the situation at Hale Road.
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