Our lives are being made hell by angry shoppers parking in our street… despite 500-space strong car park metres away
FURIOUS locals say their lives are being made a misery by Costco shoppers clogging up their street — even though there's a huge 500-space car park just metres away.
Residents of Torrington Avenue in Coventry claim they're being sworn at and even threatened by customers using their road to park instead of the store's own car park.
3
3
They've now begged the council for a residents-only parking scheme, saying the situation is unbearable — especially for those with kids or mobility issues.
In a petition to the council, they said: 'Customers regularly use the street to park which at peak times not only means that residents struggle to find space but have recently also been facing verbal abuse and threats from customers.'
They added: 'The current parking situation is especially an issue for those with small children and limited mobility as having to park further away constantly is a challenge.
"Costco has over 500 spaces which is more than ample to meet demand, and there is no reason why customers and staff need to use the street at the expense of residents.'
Locals say the situation gets worse on weekends and during Costco's busiest hours.
Some have even resorted to putting up cones and signs in a desperate attempt to keep spaces outside their homes clear.
One resident, who didn't want to be named, said: 'It's chaos some days.
"You get people blocking driveways and shouting abuse when you ask them to move.
"It's just not right when there's a perfectly good car park sitting almost empty.'
Despite the outcry, Coventry City Council looks set to reject the request.
Officials say parking levels in the area simply don't meet the threshold needed for action.
A similar bid for restrictions was made last year, also covering Torrington Avenue between the A45 and Eastcotes.
That too was knocked back after surveys showed enough spaces were still available.
A council report explained: 'The parking survey conducted in response to that petition showed that the section of Torrington Avenue highlighted did not meet the parking availability criterion set out in the Council's Residents' Parking Policy (less than 40 per cent of spaces available during the daytime).'
A follow-up check on Thursday 3 April 2025 reached the same conclusion — with 54 per cent of spaces free, well above the required threshold.
The report concluded: 'As the recent parking survey shows that the number of parking spaces available during the daytime (54 per cent) still exceeds the criterion for consideration for a residents' parking scheme, the Cabinet Member is recommended to decline the request for a residents' parking scheme on Torrington Avenue between Eastcotes and the A45.'
The final decision rests with Councillor Patricia Hetherton, the cabinet member for city services, who will make the call at a meeting on Tuesday, June 11.
Residents say they fear things will only get worse if action isn't taken soon.
Some have even started discussions about installing private barriers or applying for dropped kerbs to stop people using their space.
Another local added: 'We understand people want to save a bit of time by parking on the road, but it's not fair on us who live here.
"We just want to be able to park near our homes without having to deal with arguments or walk down the street with kids and shopping.'
Despite the council's findings, residents say they'll keep fighting.
They're urging others in the area to speak out and hope that pressure from the community might still sway the decision.
The Sun has reached out to both Costco and Coventry City Council.
3
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
19 minutes ago
- The Independent
Britons ‘better learn to speak Russian' without major defence spending hike, Nato chief warns
British people 'better learn to speak Russian' if Sir Keir Starmer does not massively ramp up defence spending, the Nato secretary general has warned. Mark Rutte said he was 'really impressed' by the prime minister 's strategic defence review unveiled last week. And he called for Nato countries to set a 'credible path' towards spending 5 per cent of their national incomes on defence amid the growing threat from Russia. Speaking at London's Chatham House, Mr Rutte said it is 'not up to me' whether that means Rachel Reeves should consider tax hikes to pay for the commitment. He added: 'I mean, what I know is that if we want to keep our societies safe... look, if you do not do this, if you would not go to the 5%, including the 3.5% core defence spending, you could still have the National Health Service, or in other countries their health systems, the pension system, etcetera, but you had better learn to speak Russian.' He did not set out a deadline by which Nato countries will have to reach the 5 per cent target, more than double what the UK currently spends on defence. 'I have a clear view on when we should achieve that,' he said. But he added: 'I keep that to myself, because we are having these consultations now with allies, and these discussions are ongoing, and we will in the end agree on a date when we have to be there.' His plans would see a return to Cold War levels of defence spending, with Russia's war on Ukraine still raging and rising tensions around the world. Nato chief Mr Rutte is in London to see Sir Keir ahead of a Nato summit in the Netherlands this month. The visit comes just days after the PM promised to make Britain 'battle ready', outlining Labour's plans to overhaul the country's defence capabilities. Defence secretary John Healey meanwhile said Britain's army needed to become '10 times more lethal' in the face of the 'immediate and pressing threat" from Russia and the rise of China. 'We are in a new era of threat, which demands a new era for UK defence,' he told MPs. But the announcement descended into a row over funding, with Sir Keir refusing to commit to hiking defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP by 2034. The PM was boosted on monday as Mr Rutte said the his plans to spend 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence from April 2027, with an aim to rise to 3 per cent over the next parliament, were not at odds with his own proposed target for the bloc. The 5 per cent goal is not "some figure plucked from the air", he said. "The fact is we need a quantum leap in our defence. The fact is we must have more forces and capability to implement our defence plans in full." While he said the "exact details are classified", Mr Rutte said there needed to be a 400 per cent increase in air and missile defence. He said Russia could be ready to use force against Nato within five years. "The new generation of Russian missiles travel at many times the speed of sound. The distance between European capitals is only a matter of minutes. There is no longer east or west. There is just Nato." As he met with Sir Keir in the White Room of No 10, he commended the Prime Minister on the "very good stuff" in the defence review. "It is not only about the traditional things, of course we need them, like ammunition... there is also drones, innovation, building the defence industrial base. It is really broad, it is really making a big impression in Brussels I can tell you," he said. Sir Keir called Nato the "cornerstone of our defence" and the "most effective military alliance the world has ever seen", adding that the task of the upcoming summit was to make sure it serves that purpose for decades to come. Sir Keir also spoke to German chancellor Friedrich Merz on Monday and the two leaders welcomed efforts by Nato allies to step up defence spending as well as Mr Rutte's suggestions to further boost it, a Downing Street spokeswoman said. The boost to the defence budget announced last week will be confirmed by chancellor Ms Reeves in her spending review on Wednesday, when she will set out the government's priorities for the next three years.
Finextra
20 minutes ago
- Finextra
How The History of Payments Has Always Been Modernisation
While attending EBA Day 2025, Phoebe Zhou, Head of Emerging Payments, HSBC joined the FinextraTV studio. Helping to contextualise the conversation, Zhou gave a historical reflection on how the payments industry has evolved before setting out the key modern innovations. From cryptocurrency to instant payments and fraud, Zhou provides a clear and broad overview of our current state of payments and how, when we reflect, we can see that payments has always been in a state of digital transformation
The Guardian
23 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Public perceptions of Starmer and Farage are perhaps a bit hazy
The optics could hardly be more different. On one stage, Nigel Farage was in a Welsh former steel town talking about reopening coalmines. On another, Keir Starmer enjoyed a cosy chat with a tech multi-billionaire wearing a £7,000 leather jacket. Does this therefore show that the Reform UK leader has been successful in, to use his words, parking his tanks on Labour's lawn and becoming the voice of working people? As ever in politics, it's all a bit more complicated. For one thing, Starmer is not exactly a stranger to the factory floor. Little more than a week ago, he used a glass plant in St Helens, Merseyside, as the backdrop for a speech condemning Reform's fiscal plans. Recent months have seen him pop up at car production lines, armaments companies, rail infrastructure depots, you name it. Additionally, as prime minister you need to take every industry seriously, and it made sense for Starmer to open London tech week alongside Jensen Huang, even if the head of US semiconductor firm Nvidia is a man whose trademark look is a Tom Ford leather jacket. The complications work both ways. For all that Farage used his speech in Port Talbot to deliver a Donald Trump-like message of fossil fuel-led reindustrialisation, his natural milieu involves a bit less dirt under the fingernails. To take one example, on Monday Farage briefly mentioned being in Las Vegas two weeks ago 'launching our crypto and digital assets bill', when he was in fact a guest speaker at the lavish Bitcoin 2025 conference. It is not known if Farage was being paid for the appearance, but he is no stranger to corporate gigs. Since becoming an MP he has trousered £40,000 for a speech to an offshore taxation conference, and £280,000 promoting gold bullion, not to mention a TV job that pays about £2,500 per hour. And yet, in a poll released last week, it emerged that slightly more British voters think Farage – a public school-educated former City trader – is more working class than Starmer, who is, as we heard many times during the general election, the son of a toolmaker. What is going on? One bit of context is that actually not that many people believed it about either – 19% for Farage, and 17% with Starmer. Why so few for the prime minister? In part, it's likely to be his long pre-politics career as a lawyer and then director of public prosecutions – and particularly the knighthood that resulted. More generally, it's fair to say that voters' impressions of politicians are often a bit hazy. A long-running YouGov tracker of the most popular British politicians has Brexit-backing Conservative peer David Frost top, and the shadow education secretary, Laura Trott, third, unlikely results widely assumed to be because people have mistaken them for the more fondly recalled late TV host and Olympic cyclist respectively. More pertinent is that when it comes to actual voter support, Reform are now the top choice among working-class voters. One poll last month said that just 17% supported Labour, against 39% for Reform. Farage is very aware of this current advantage, and makes a point of regular speeches at working men's clubs, channelling Trump's paradoxical political status as a wealthy man who largely spends time with other wealthy men who nonetheless attracts support in deprived areas. All that said, Starmer is determined to shift those Reform tanks by pointing out another similarity with Trump – the fact that Farage's policies seem more generally aimed at the managerial class than those on the factory floor. Paul Nowak, the TUC general secretary, argued recently that Farage was 'cosplaying' as a voice of the working classes, and that his opposition to the government's employment rights bill and lack of a coherent economic plan showed his lack of authenticity. Even as Farage talks up the return of heavy industry and calls for the water industry to be nationalised, expect more of the same from Downing Street, plus Starmer's insistence that a 'Liz Truss 2.0' policy of mass tax cuts would hurt ordinary families the most. And if you run a factory, brace yourself for more political visits.
