THE column I wrote a few weeks ago about the traffic in Basingstoke seemed to hit a real nerve.

A number of people I have met around and about since then have mentioned it and then proceeded to share with me their own road-related horror story. It seems that lots of the drivers in town experience a lot of stress on a daily basis, courtesy of their commute.

But, of course, as most of us are aware, cars cause lots of problems when they are not in motion, too, given the myriad issues which arise over parking.

The Gazette quite regularly receives correspondence from residents who are fuming about some aspect of the problem of parked cars and thus dips a toe into these murky waters.

Some readers are incandescent with rage that someone else in their street regularly blocks their drive, or parks on the boundary of their property.

The latter offences have also been reported as having been committed by strangers, who are also regularly accused of abandoning cars inconsiderately – or even parking illegally on double yellow lines - when, for example, collecting a child from school.

Others are mad at the people who park up on the pavement, as this can block access for pedestrians, especially mums wielding pushchairs.

Then there are those who spring to the defence of those who do the latter, believing that they are helping to keep the – often quite narrow – routes open by moving their vehicle slightly up and out of the road space, thus reducing the potential for blockages.

This issue is one that, let’s face it, is never going to go away, given that car ownership has increased hugely in the time since housing estates were first built.

Space cannot simply be summoned out of nowhere and we’re running out of room.

Where a family might once have had one car, now possibly both adults in a home do. If these adults have older children still at home, these kids might have a car as well.

And what if one larger property is rented out to four or five working adults who all have a vehicle? They’ll all need somewhere to park. And what if one person has both a car and a large work vehicle such as a van?

Just one individual house or flat can own three or four or five cars – or more.

We have two cars in our household so one of the first things my husband and I did when we moved into our home was to convert our small front garden (which was an area overgrown with shrubs) into a space to park, so that both vehicles could be moved onto our drive and out of the street.

Parking is a huge priority but unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that developments in the last few years, or those planned to be built in future, have properly considered the car space required by a modern family, especially when young adults have to live at home for longer as buying a property is prohibitively expensive.

From the looks of it, this is an issue which is only going to get worse.