Parking provisions

For those of us who are not so aware - what is the Sidgwick site? What would I be using it for? Is it like the main library area or something, or where they do a lot of lectures?

Reply 22

OP

The Sidgwick site is where a number of subject faculties are based. As you are doing history and education, your faculty is right next to Homerton and so therfore I don't think you'll be visiting it much. Lucky Git. :p:

Reply 23

FadeToBlackout

noooooo!! i need my car! it keeps me sane!

seriously though, i'm already going to have to sell my horses and riding and driving are my two total physical releases that really help me. is there any way to get round these rules...i mean, if i found somewhere to keep it over the 3 miles away, would that be ok?

really wouldn't drive around cambridge as i totally agree there is no point from what i've seen. but my family and friends will be everywhere, and driving really does keep me sane....

FTB's Masterful Action Plan to Keep You Sane:

1. Become a cox and drive eight men or women round a challenging river.

OR: 2. Join the Automobile Society and drive with them ocasionally.

3. Help at a local riding school (Cambridge isn't that far from Newmarket...) or join a university horsey society or something.

4. Job done.

Reply 24

OP

For doubly exemption i shall be joining the automobile society as well as the cricket club. As for Horses; I can't bear the brutes.

Reply 25

Childermass

*CgpC*

noooooo!! i need my car! it keeps me sane!

seriously though, i'm already going to have to sell my horses and riding and driving are my two total physical releases that really help me. is there any way to get round these rules...i mean, if i found somewhere to keep it over the 3 miles away, would that be ok?

really wouldn't drive around cambridge as i totally agree there is no point from what i've seen. but my family and friends will be everywhere, and driving really does keep me sane....

Uhm... deal with it.

I'm fairly sure there are riding stables nearby; someone walked into our plodge in full riding tack earlier.

Reply 26

gooseymcgoose

i can't believe there are people who just couldn't cope without their cars/horses. london is a 45 min train ride away, and homerton of all places is virtually on the station platform. everywhere in cambridge is a ten minute cycle. get a grip guys. what kind of places are you coming from where you have to go everywhere in a car, don't you think that's a slightly unsustainable lifestyle?

Reply 27

visesh

17

Hell I just got *******ed by my porters this evening for parking my car in my hostel car park for a few days. It's normally open to students (or parents/visitors etc)for the weekend, so I decided to park it there on Friday night and move it out on Sunday. Unfortunately, the car park remained closed all weekend and I was unable to move it. I decided to leave it there until Saturday and move it out, as it wasn't causing any problems. The head gardener noticed my car was illegally parked in college and reported me today. I then get an email from the porters saying that they know that I have a car in the city and know that I've been unofficially allowed to keep it by college but need to move it ASAP or risk getting my car clamped. This is fair enough as I'm actually parked in college grounds. I usually park it on the road by Selwyn when it's not at home...

The Dean who was walking past the p'lodge at the time told me that despite the fact I actually LIVE (as in my parents own a flat here and I pay council tax) in the city, I still need the motor proctor's permission to use a car during term time. The proctor's apparently have a deal with the city council stating that all undergraduates, regardless of their home address, need to have permission from the university to use a car within the city during full term.

There are some ways to get round this though, and the Dean said that when I get my senior tutor to officially authorise my use of the car (he is fully aware of my situation and has previously allowed me to park in the grads accommodation), I can get a parking space by the UL and a little sticker indicating that I'm a member of King's and can therefore park there.

Reply 28

OP

NOT: I don't go everywhere on car but to get to where I live (London Outskirts) on public transport from Cambridge would take me nearly three hours. Now that's unsustainable.

Reply 29

maisie123

4

Epicurus

NOT: I don't go everywhere on car but to get to where I live (London Outskirts) on public transport from Cambridge would take me nearly three hours. Now that's unsustainable.

Why is 3 hours unsusatinable?

Reply 30

Helenia

20

Why do you need to go home so often anyway?

Reply 31

gooseymcgoose

Epicurus

NOT: I don't go everywhere on car but to get to where I live (London Outskirts) on public transport from Cambridge would take me nearly three hours. Now that's unsustainable.

what area of london is this and how long does it take to drive?

it just seems to me that cambridge is this tiny place, there are 20 000 students here, it's already packed with cars which are suffocating us all with pollution, killing us all on our bikes and probably destroying the environment and then you have people who've been driving since their 17th birthday and just couldn't possibly go to lectures by bike, or take public transport home. what if we all took that attitude? 10 000 cars converging on sidgewick at 9am with the other 10 000 converging on new museums/downing.

I don't have a car and neither do my parents, so I take a four hour train ride whenever I go home, it's really not that bad. I also note that I get far more work done on a train than I do with my hands on a steering wheel.

similarly, driving to ipswich? the train service is great, there's very few places with a direct line from cambridge.

Reply 32

IronicDory

I don't even have a car, cant drive. I was just enquiring, seeing how strict the rules actually were.

I think it's quite nice. Creates a bit of a timewarp.
(someone's a soppy romantic)

Reply 33

two22

I am doing Vet Med next year and I know there is no particular reason to need a car for the first three years, but is it relatively easy to get permission for the last three clinical years where you might need the car to get to work experience etc. Also, as you have already got a BA, do you still count as a regular undergrad as far as parking reg's go?
Thanks xxxxxx

Reply 34

OP

not

what area of london is this and how long does it take to drive?

it just seems to me that cambridge is this tiny place, there are 20 000 students here, it's already packed with cars which are suffocating us all with pollution, killing us all on our bikes and probably destroying the environment and then you have people who've been driving since their 17th birthday and just couldn't possibly go to lectures by bike, or take public transport home. what if we all took that attitude? 10 000 cars converging on sidgewick at 9am with the other 10 000 converging on new museums/downing.

I don't have a car and neither do my parents, so I take a four hour train ride whenever I go home, it's really not that bad. I also note that I get far more work done on a train than I do with my hands on a steering wheel.

similarly, driving to ipswich? the train service is great, there's very few places with a direct line from cambridge.

I live in Sewardstonebury. (The only place with a London postcode where you can get a few acres for a reasonable price tag :smile:

) Now unfortunately there is no tube in Sewardstonebury so I have to take a bus from Walthamstow, which bloody takes 45 minutes because of the bloody traffic in east london. Walthamstow to Kings cross on the tube takes 50 minutes. from there most trains take about 1 hour to get to Cam. So that's 2.35 hours adding reasonable waiting time and delays and getting to the college it takes 3 hours. Whereas with driving i can get home in 50 mins down M11 at a good time.

I agree as I've said in this thread that it probably is unsustainable to drive to and fro the sidgwick site and am willing to go on bike to my lectures.

Reply 35

gooseymcgoose

are you on the 193 bus route? the national express buses stop in stratford which has good connections to your neck of the woods. otherwise see what you mean.

I was given a little more leeway as a grad, in that my word was taken that I played for the Uni team, I didn't have to chase around for a letter from my Captain confirming such. But otherwise, the Motor Proctor nause still seems to need completing as a grad/mature student.

Epicurus, I'm afraid that so far your reasons are not even coming close to being acceptable. You can't say that you even 'need' to go home every weekend, as you wouldn't then keep term. I also know an undergrad who was orphaned shortly before coming up, he was not allowed to keep a car in order to visit his foster family/ younger sibling.

As has been alluded to before, the University has some agreement going on with the Council whereby the number of students allowed to keep vehicles in the city is very, very tightly controlled.

And don't forget that if you do get permission, chances are that your College will bill you for parking, I pay about £40 per term.

Reply 37

Helenia

20

two22

I am doing Vet Med next year and I know there is no particular reason to need a car for the first three years, but is it relatively easy to get permission for the last three clinical years where you might need the car to get to work experience etc. Also, as you have already got a BA, do you still count as a regular undergrad as far as parking reg's go?
Thanks xxxxxx

Once you stop living in college, they don't regulate you quite as tightly, in general. I know at least one of our clinical vets had a car, although she was also boat club captain. But if medics are allowed...

Reply 38

*Joanna*

12

Epicurus

Interesting. Well I was planning of playing Cricket at Cam anyway and am pretty good by my own standards. (I can do a manic leg spin and also off spin :smile:

) I wanted to bring a car initially, so I could go home on the weekends; an hour's drive down the M11. Even if I don't end up using it to go to and from the Sidgwick site and only use it to go to London; it would still be worthwhile bringing along.

Cambridge also have wierd rules about keeping term- you're not meant to leave College for more than 2 nights (I think) at a time, and you have to be in residence at least 59 nights, otherwise you have to stay longer at the end of term. That is, if you tell them you're going and sign out; you could just go and, in a big college especially, if you don't miss any supervisions or compulsory classes, nobody will notice.

But to reitereate what Helen said...why do you want to go home that frequently? A lot of the social aspect of term happens at the weekends, it's a chance to sleep, and (possibly/probably) do some work. It's almost the only time I see my friends outside of a working environment (though that could be because I'm a dirty NatSci).

Reply 39

OP