If I'm reading this correctly, ( and I may not be, its been a long day ) the reason for these bollards is that the council can't afford to put in the dropped kerbs? Now, I can understand that bit, budgets are budgets. However, in order to prevent householders from damaging the existing kerbs they are sending shovel and bollard toting workers to block the residents cars out or indeed in. Surely this ......em........costs quite a lot too?
Sometimes I feel disconnected from the modern world !
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This is a case for Cool Hand Luke.
If they can do that, we can do this, capisce?
Very rough concreting in the pic I saw too. Who are they using as contractos one wonders?
Edited by Lud on 19/02/2008 at 20:13
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Seems like a fair enough response to people who ignore basic planning regs. They say its a "last resort" so no doubt some process involving letters etc. I see the guy in Neasden calls his front garden a "driveway" when it clearly is a garden.
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There used to be a dirty mid-sixties Bristol parked in a front garden in Westbourne Park Road near here, a great stamping-ground of my late youth. The house owner had simply knocked down the wall and hadn't bothered with lowering the pavement. The car was just driven across it onto the grass, rubble and other stuff in the front garden.
I liked that. It was classy. But the Bristol owner has moved (or got something more London-friendly) and the wall I think has been replaced. Damn. And the rough-looking young women who used to make incomprehensible remarks as one passed have gone somewhere else too.
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Shoespy I think the expectation is that the residents pay for the dropkerb and not the taxpayer. I think its a reasonable action to take. Paving slabs are being broken around here by vehicles taking liberties with parking on pavements..
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Shoespy I think the expectation is that the residents pay for the dropkerb and not the taxpayer.
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You are correct.
BBC London TV had an interview with both sides the other lunchtime.
Residents say it is too expensive so cannot or will not pay the council.
Council also said some jobs are expensive as some involve moving signs poles , lamp posts, etc. etc.
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>>>>>"Council might plant bollards to block your drive"
GOOD!
And by the way, it is not a drive, it is what's known as a front garden.
I used to live in a very pretty little Victorian house that was on a main road with no off road parking for the four pairs of semi's that were 100 years old.
One by one, the neighbours were knocking down their front walls and paving over their gardens to 'create' a parking space which meant them having to drive over a pavement to get onto it. Only those with cars the size of a Clio or smaller could actually fit their car onto the area that was previously a garden, others were overhanging onto the pavement and meant that pedestrians and kids walking to the local school had to walk in the road to get past.
I was told by my estate agent when I put the house up for sale that the surrounding properties that had done this had effectivly knocked £10k off of the value of my house as it looked so awful whilst it would not add any value to theirs at all as it was obviously not a proper parking place when their bonnet was nudging the front window ledge.
Some people have no taste whatsoever and probably adorn their house with 3 zillion lightbulbs and inflatable Santa's from mid October onwards..................
Edited by stuartl on 19/02/2008 at 20:20
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Just to be clear. I also loath the notion of cars littering what should be gardens and support its discouragement but spending public money on more ugly street furniture of this nature would seem to me to be equally unfortunate. Perhaps a fine would have been more appropriate?
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I think I would personally have arranged for the drop-kerb work to be carried out then invoiced the household for it. Then chase in the same way they would for an outstanding council tax payment or fine. A bit less draconian than stopping someone from leaving their house.
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I think the real point is that they don't want people doing it at all, some people find it difficult to understand the word "no" and only understand "draconian" when it slaps them in their faces.
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I think the real point is that they don't want people doing it at all
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I did not get that impression from the TV interview. It was more:
1. Do not drive over the pavement.
2. If you wish to park where you garden was then pay up for a dropped kerb.
3. If you ignore 1. then lots of letters.
4. Still ignore everything? Then bollards to you.
5. We await your early morning crying call. :-)
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Still reasonable !! I hadn't seen the TV interview in question.
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I believe (although I have no evidence) that the bollards referred to are temporary ones rather than a permanent feature.
They probably deploy them at "troublesome" addresses and then move them once the occupiers get the message.
Remember as well that all this concrete gardening is affecting the drainage dynamics in our towns.
I have had long running battles with my council over some works here, I appreciate why they want to keep a certain amount of compliance in such matters and personally I am glad they do it.
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>>others were overhanging onto the pavement and meant that pedestrians .... had to walk in the road to get past.
Parking wardens in my part of the world give them a parking ticket.:-)
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PCSOs have been doing it here, I had to defend one guy on such a ticket - he got convicted. The PCSO had done him up like a kipper, complete with photos of mothers pushing prams in the road for effect.......I had to doff my cap to him. It was a long standing complaint in the village in question, and consequently a quick win for that PCSO who was new to that beat. Respect.
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My point exactly PU. Penalise the wrongdoer through the courts. Don't just make more mess to make a point.
The small town where I now live is a typical clash of medieval width streets trying to cope with the 21st century. Many examples of this type of "adaptation" to the front of properties can been seen. Few of them if any enhance their appearance. I sometimes wonder why families with two or more cars choose to live in such properties and then persist in trying to park outside or immediately adjacent to them. Some time ago I chose to live in central Bath where parking is very much at a premium and digging up your front garden would probably have been a capital offense. I just took the view that a long walk ( 1/2 mile ) to the car was the necessary price to pay for the other benefits to me of that location.
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"I just took the view that a long walk ( 1/2 mile ) to the car was the necessary price to pay for the other benefits to me of that location."
Three reasons why people don;t want to do this.
1. They believe they have a God-given right to park as close to their houses as possible.
2. Too idle to walk the 1/2 mile
3. Fear of crime.
(Not in any particular order)
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I doubt penalising these people through the courts would've resulted in the amount of publicity this matter has had either locally or in the media. I'd wager the LA's highways dept has since had a spate of requests for dropped kerbs from people who've suddenly discovered they had the money after all...... Amazing how folk find the cash when they get caught isn't it.
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>>>>Parking wardens in my part of the world give them a parking ticket
Believe me I tried but they wouldn't in this area (Farnborough, Hants)
The infuriating thing was that one of the households moved in to the house, had a small car which just about fitted on the front garden then got a Merc Jeep monstrosity that even a muppet would know could not have fitted on that space in a million years and STILL the local authorities just ignored it.
Just for the record, I had two vehicles that I kept parked at the side of the road and lost countless (folded in) mirrors but I refused to compromise the pretty view of my old house by parking in the front garden.
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Is no just about dropped kerbs. There is another issue in that services buried under pavements are not always buried as deeply if traffic is not passing over.
I've just had a cable TV cable moved as part of a project and they needed to know where the entrance of the site would be so they could bury the cable deeper at that point.
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And people wonder why there is a smell of gas, just where the footpath is concave from parking LGVs and HGVs.
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I watched a very interesting presentation (yes really it was) about bollards a couple of weeks ago at a Conference I was presenting at later and this very problem of sub-surface services (see I paid attention) came up, they now can have a car proof bollard that needs just 6 inches of foundation for putting on pavements in London where the services are very close to the pavements surface.
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dont get me started on cable TV!!! At the same house I was talking about previously the cable co simply peeled back my newly laid turf and put the cable underneath then wanted to charge me when I put a spade through it! I put the same spade behind the grey box they fixed to the front of my nice red bricks and handed it to the guy from the cable company telling him that I had disconnected myself from their services. They took me to Court. I won and got my costs paid in full : o )
Edited by stuartl on 19/02/2008 at 21:15
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Is no just about dropped kerbs. There is another issue in that services buried under pavements are not always buried as deeply if traffic is not passing over.
The council person did mention " services may need moving.>
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I was told by my estate agent when I put the house up for sale that the surrounding properties that had done this had effectivly knocked £10k off of the value of my house as it looked so awful whilst it would not add any value to theirs at all as it was obviously not a proper parking place when their bonnet was nudging the front window ledge.
Utter tosh, I bet your house had increased in value since you purchased it, how can anyone say it would have been worth 10k more? A buyer will only pay xx amount no matter what. Your house was worth what the market said it was worth, not what the estate agent said it was.
We have something similar in our road, a house at the end thinks 20k has been knocked of the value of his house as people park outside it!!!! Only some in the close are lucky enough to have driveways, the rest of us mortals have to make do with on road parking!!! He has a drive and so thinks no one should park outside his house!!
But we also have a something in our deeds that states none of us are allowed to use our front gardens for parking, either cars or caravans.
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"something in our deeds that states none of us are allowed to use our front gardens for parking, either cars or caravans."
Any mention of tumble driers ?
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TU you have no idea what you are talking about.
There were near-identical houses at the far end of the road where the owners were prohibited from paving their gardens as they were near a junction and they sold for more money despite having smaller rear gardens and internal dimensions. A local agents compiled a survey of 'first impressions' and one of the big no-no's was cars parked on paved over front gardens albeit on the house for sale or those surrounding it . Therefore this had an effect on the sale value of the properties affected by the type of people who would pave over anything to get two wheels off of the road.
I assume you have no knowledge at all of the area and the historical interest of the properties so you have no idea of the situation in this area and your comments are ill-informed and worthless, in fact they are 'utter tosh', to coin your phrase.
(Have you started putting up your Christmas lights on the roof of your house yet!?!)
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A house will, like anything else, sell for what it is worth to the buyer, your house may have been more saleable if your neighbours did not have their driveways, but you can not say that it was worth 10k less as it had never actually been sold at the higher price - so I stick by my comment of utter tosh.
As for the Xmas lights, I haven't even taken them down, it's not Easter yet is it!!!!!
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Good idea. I knew of a chap who parked his skip lorry in front of his house, in a residential cul-de-sac, after having driven it (sometimes with a full skip on board) over the pavement. The pavement was badly damaged, his "front garden" was ruts, the fence adjacent was destroyed, and - sometimes - the smell! What a pig, he intimidated neighbours too. He stopped doing it quite suddenly, one fine day in May, fortunately for all around :). An extreme example, perhaps, but for the ordinary motorist, it's only a couple of hundred to do the job properly (council permission/dropped kerb), as long as permission is forthcoming, which it usually is (if not, it's likely that there's a good reason).
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I don't see why the Council didn't use a planning enforcement notice. You need PP to use your front garden as a drive...
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Because there aren't enough planning enforcement officers. Each case of enforcement takes months and costs a fortune. Any enforcement can go to appeal many times, some cases taking years. Like other enforcement this will be seen as a minor infringement compared to people building new houses without permission.
This way is quick and should be effective.
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I have had this done to me, the drive has been like it is for over ten years, and when I made an unrelated complaint to the Highways Dept. two years ago, they came and put a post in, I took it down and made good the hole, and they have just reinstalled one. They stonewall any communications or complaints. It's a Labour council.
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>>the drive has been like it is for over ten years
In which case you should have it regularised through the planning department
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>>the drive has been like it is for over ten years
In which case you should have it regularised through the planning department.
I don't know whether there was planning permission granted to a previous occupant, but it says on their website that the cost of a Regularisation Certificate is significantly higher than if proper advance permission was sought.. The Council say that bollards are a "permitted structure" and they can put them wherever they like.
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I have some sympathy with the council. Some streets looked damned awful with broken walls, cracked paving, carelessly laid gravel by people who won't or cannot afford to pay for a dropped kerb. Before anyone bites my head off, it is all about living in a more pleasant envionment.
Where I live, there are lots of grass verges between the pavement and kerbstone with signs asking drivers not to park on them. Needles to say, they get parked on, churned up, ridged etc and just spoil what could be a very nice looking road.
It just says a lot about the selfish me, me, me people who consider most things a right when, in fact, they may only be a privilege.
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