Daimy Gommers, 5, drives the car as Prince Harry rides beside her as he visits the Driving Challenge … [+]
Car parking spaces can pit neighbor against neighbor, and it seems the problem even troubles the British Royal family. Forget, if you can, the tales about Harry’s frostbitten member and pore over the fact that even those born into immense wealth and privilege can fret over the supposed slight of a car parked a few inches too far to one side.
Prince Harry’s bombshell memoir Spare is officially published tomorrow. Leaked excerpts reveal not just that the Duke of Sussex used psychedelics as “therapy,” lost his virginity to an older woman behind a pub, and that he likened killing Taliban soldiers when he served in Afghanistan to removing “chess pieces” from a board, but that he also holds a long grudge against Royal staffers who parked their cars too sloppily for Harry’s comfort.
A poster advertising the launch of Prince Harry’s memoir “Spare” is seen in a store window on … [+]
When the prince first moved into Kensington Palace, he was “assigned” an apartment “in the semi-basement of the palace” by Charles and Camilla, Harry complains in the book.
That Harry was “half buried” in the luxurious mansion was made worse by the fact that “Mr. R”—thought to be Charles Richards, an adviser to the Queen at the time—was “very fond” of parking his Land Rover Discovery in front of the windows and “blocking out all light.”
Harry reveals in Spare that he wrote to Mr. R asking him “politely to move his car” by a “few inches.”
This did not happen, remembers the prince, accusing Mr. R of asking his grandmother, the Queen, to tell Harry to stop complaining.
This wasn’t the only perceived parking violation by the Royal staffer or his family.
“Mrs. R” was “guilty of a traffic violation even more inexcusable than her husband,” Harry told the book’s ghost writer because she parked her car in a spot once used by his late mother, Princess Diana.
This right royal parking spaces spat isn’t the first to involve Harry. In 2019, he won an apology and correction from the Sun after the newspaper had claimed Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had banned staff from using a car park because it overlooked their then-new home at Frogmore Cottage in Windsor.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex had complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) about the Sun’s front page story headlined: “Not in Meg back yard,” with the subheadline: “Parking ban for staff near home.”
This “Royal rumpus,” as the Sun called it, was deemed by IPSO to be only selectively accurate.
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex helps his new bride the Duchess of Sussex into the car as they leave … [+]
The newspaper had “not provided any direct evidence” of Harry and Meghan’s involvement in the parking ban decision, noted IPSO.
“In these circumstances,” continued the press watchdog back in 2019, “there was a failure to take care over the presentation as fact of the claim that [the Royal couple] had ‘imposed the ban,’” IPSO said.
The parking of cars—badly or otherwise—is not just a personal battle for some; it’s also often a political hot potato.
The end to free pandemic parking for hospital nurses and other staff in England led to calls in March last year for the benefit to be maintained (although there were no similar calls for medics to receive free bicycles or bus passes).
In Paris, Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s pledge to remove car parking spots to make more space for people has been opposed by motoring groups and opposition politicians.
In other cities, the introduction of workplace parking levies has led to bitter infighting.
A Workplace Parking Levy (WPL) surveillance vehicle in a car park in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, … [+]
Last year the Scottish Conservatives failed in a bid to scrap a workplace parking levy law introduced in the Scottish Parliament as part of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019, giving councils the power to charge workplaces that offer parking. Business groups, including the Scottish Chambers of Commerce and the Scottish Retail Consortium, have voiced their opposition to the scheme.
However, in Nottingham, England, the city’s workplace parking levy has been a roaring success. The council’s levy, introduced in 2012, has radically improved the city’s air quality because fewer people now drive to work.
Carbon dioxide emissions have fallen by a quarter since 2015.
Residents and visitors to Nottingham can also dot around the city on a $704 million tram network, the latest sections of which were part-funded by the parking levy.
Nottingham has also taken road space away from motorists and given it to cyclists, making it easier and safer to cycle in the Midlands city.
For 96% of the time, England’s 32 million cars don’t move, reported the RAC Foundation in 2021. The motoring organization found that cars are parked for 23 hours out of every 24.
The RAC Foundation’s report further revealed that England’s immobile mobility devices were also taking up an increasing amount of space. Cars not to mention their often sedentary occupants—are now a third fatter than in 1965.
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex accompany young children driving mini … [+]
“As well as cars having got bigger there are also many more of them,” said an RAC Foundation statement.
“In 1965 there were just 7.7 million cars on Britain’s roads. In 1995 there were 21.4 million. Today there are 31.7 million.”
The motoring organization stated that the top five bestselling cars in the U.K. in 1965 had an average width of 1.5m. Now the top five sellers have ballooned to 1.8m wide on average, sagging over parking spaces designed for narrower cars.
And with only a finite amount of space available to Britain’s motorists—including those with blue blood—spats over car parking spaces will likely continue.