RESIDENTS near a busy airport have blasted holidaymakers who they claim dodge parking fees by stealing their parking spaces.
The village of Takeley, Essex, is just an eight-minute drive from London Stansted Airport – but locals have been left furious by travellers filling their roads.
Takeley, Essex, is plagued by holidaymakers looking for cheap parking[/caption]
North Road is one of few areas in the village without parking restrictions[/caption]
Residents have been left desperate for a solution to the problem[/caption]
Some residents have even used their own cones to reserve private parking spaces[/caption]
Opportunistic holidaymakers have been saving themselves as much as £268 in airport fees by parking in the village while away on their travels.
And while most of the roads in the village face some restrictions – from a yellow line imposing restrictions for one hour between 10am to 11am, to fully prohibited red lines – one street, North Road, is entirely unrestricted.
It left one resident in the road saying: “You’re terrorised by people going to the airport.”
While in the summer there’s a near-constant rotation of vehicles taking up street parking, he said it can be just as bad in the winter as “you’ll get people parking outside your house and leaving it for three months.”
Other residents expressed similar frustrations.
One retired woman said she counted 25 cars parked on the perpendicular road the other day, and it only gets worse as the summer holidays begin, with another counting 40 cars in previous years.
Parsonage Road offers a direct route to Stansted Airport, allowing drivers from south Essex to skip the M11 and making it a favoured shortcut.
She said: “It’s just a nightmare. It’s horrible. It’s horrendous.”
While it is frustrating for non-residents to make use of the on-street parking, the lack of restrictions does mean it is entirely legal.
However, residents have also been plagued by visitors using their private driveways.
The same retiree told us about an incident in which she came home from work to find a 4×4 parked in her only driving space near her flat on North Road.
When she confronted the holidaymaker and politely asked the driver to leave, she refused.
To add insult to injury she then threw her McDonalds takeaway out of the window when she eventually drove off.
She said: “They’ve just got no respect.”
Another resident expressed a similar sentiment as she said: “It’s just that human conscientiousness; some people just don’t give a shit.
“It just shows what sort of person they are.”
Landlady of the Four Ashes, Trish has said holidaymakers have left cars parked at the pub for up to a month.
Her sister who lives on North Road once had a black Audi parked on her drive for nearly six weeks.
Once the driver realised he could get away with it, he has come and gone from the spot over the last year.
She has grown frustrated by the number of people that come into the pub to ask her where to park when Stansted has plenty of parking available – travellers just don’t want to pay for it.
Parking booked online for four days at Stansted Airport starts from £59.99 — but paying on the day can cost as much as £268.
One particularly notable incident occurred several months ago when someone posted on the Takeley and Canfield Matters Facebook group.
Trish said someone had asked if anyone would be able to drop a family of four to the airport for a fiver as taxis cost £27.
Residents were quick to point out that an easy-to-access bus is available for just £1, as Trish said they then confessed to being unaware of local transport options because they don’t live in the area.
She said: “Not only did they want to park on the bloody road but they wanted a lift to the airport.”
The influx of holidaymakers also has a direct impact on workers in the area, particularly farmers.
One local farmer said that he had to put logs in the entryway after people started abandoning their cars for weeks on end.
Retired lorry driver Paul Masters reported similar problems throughout his career, although he said it has gotten increasingly bad.
Paul said: “I used to work for Stig’s grab service and sometimes we couldn’t get the lorries in because people parked there.
“When you beep at them to move they act surprised.”
He concluded: “It’s a beautiful town but the airport has just ruined it.”
It’s not only the parking that has impacted the town, as Paul pointed out that taxi drivers have contributed to local littering problems.
He also added: “It’s not just rubbish and litter if you know what I mean, you can picture during a long night shift – and I’ve had to shovel it up.”
Residents said that between 25 and 40 cars regularly park on the busy street[/caption]
Local retiree, Paul Masters said people block the drives of nearby farms[/caption]
Pub landlady Trish has had people leave their cars on her car park for a month[/caption]
Stingy holidaymakers then get a bus to Stansted Airport, eight minutes away[/caption]
The situation reached a head for many residents in 2023 when a young boy got hit by a car when trying to cross between two of the parked cars on the packed street near the social club.
It left the boy with a broken leg – and locals are grateful it wasn’t worse given how reckless drivers can be in the area, as travellers making a frantic dash to the airport are often unaware of their surroundings.
One of the retiree’s particular concerns is for children in the area as she said: “It is dangerous, you couldn’t let the kids go out there and cross on their own anymore.”
While the council did increase the restrictions on that stretch of road, locals feel the same safety measures should have been more widely applied as it is an “accident waiting to happen” according to Trish.
With residents frustrated about the lack of action from the local council, many have taken matters into their own hands.
The same retired North Road resident said she frequently confronts travellers when they get back to their cars.
Other neighbours have taken a more extreme approach as she said one of her neighbours was arrested after a fight broke out.
She said: “One day this sports car came and parked on his drive and he told him ‘you can’t park there, my wife’s gone into labour and we’re waiting for an ambulance’.
“The guy just said ‘I can park where I like’.
“It was like a red rag to a bull suddenly they were punching each other and he got arrested.”
She added: “Tyres frequently get let down.”
Another reportedly has her own cones that she puts in front of her house so drivers can’t park there.
However, some of this vigilante justice has actually made the problem worse for locals.
It has also left residents nervous about talking on the record for fear of repercussions and backlash from drivers.
Former local resident Kim said: “I know locals that have had their cars keyed because they’ve had to park in the street – it’s too difficult to know which ones are which.”
With local residents having their parking spaces stolen, they are then forced to park on the road typically used by airport-goers, leaving their own cars at risk of vengeance.
Kim added: “Absolutely it causes tension in the area.”
She has since moved to Little Canfield, where she believes the problem could spread next.
Recently she has started to notice people parking on the grass verges on the lanes between the villages as she said in the winter “it makes the whole area a mud bath.”
Residents regularly ask people to move, but are met with rudeness[/caption]
A young boy was hit trying to cross the busy street, leaving him with a broken leg[/caption]
Trish’s pub car park is a hot spot for tourists looking for free parking[/caption]
To prevent the need for vigilante justice, residents would like to see more involvement from the council.
With the turf war dragging on for over a decade, fed-up residents are demanding a ban on non-residential vehicles along their road.
A recent petition gained 8,000 in a day, highlighting the desperation of locals to make a change to the area.
Despite the petition’s success, Trish said: “we’ve not heard anything [from the council].”
One resident said they had written to Kemi Badenoch (MP for North West Essex), the Highways enforcement team, Takeley Parish Council, Essex County Council – and yet “no one will do anything”.
The obvious solution to the problem would be to impose parking restrictions on all of the roads in the village, but this could impact locals without their own private drives.
Similarly, introducing residents permits feels like an imperfect solution which puts the burden on residents to foot the bill.
Kim said: “You’d have to pay for that – and some people are really skint around here.”
Another suggested that Stansted Airport should offer free parking to those flying from the terminal, removing the motivation for people to find cheaper alternatives.
Ultimately though, residents did acknowledge that Stansted is a vital part of the town, even if it has caused issues over the years.
One resident said: “It is good because it does bring jobs to the area.”
While Trish concluded: “We do need it, we need the jobs and the local infrastructure, what we don’t need is the knock-on effect.”
Some drivers have even used residents’ private parking spaces[/caption]
A general view of Stansted Airport[/caption]
