Pavement parking is illegal in London. I thought consideration was being given to making this countrywide, but no sign yet.
FSVO "London" and "illegal". Within two minutes' walk of Larrington Towers there are places where parking is 100% on the pavement, places where signs order you to park with two wheels on the pavement and places where a single wheel raised an inch above normal road level will net you a ticket.
Across the road from our mothership on Blackfriars Road there's always cars and vans on the pavement – deliveries and facilities for the buildings opposite. Unlike the peril of pavement cycling, I can't imagine the Met being too troubled about someone driving a couple of tonnes for motor vehicle on the pavement. Southwark, I suppose, might be enticed to ticket them.
As part of the wider story, it's interesting how people have been manipulated into car-reliance and still quite often see be entirely dependent on their car as 'freedom' whereas under every measure it's the opposite. It's a huge limit on what we can do, everything is defined by driving and parking, and it's killed much of the idea of locality – if your local high street is a dying scroll of booze-for-kids convenience stores, charity shops, kebabs and junk food, and a betting shop, it's not Amazon that's killed it, it's the car.
I have a fairly modest dream of being able to walk to the train station or town centre, side by side and in conversation with my wife, not having to step out into the road or squeeze through gaps between walls, street furniture and cars. If you've got kids or a buggy, you pretty much have to drive the 5-10 minutes. And once people are in their car, they don't drive to the local high street.