Roffle NOW WITH ADDED ROFFLING!!! An Englishman's home may be he castle, but his driveway can't be used as a (alleged) forecourt.

[Unipart TTC]

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[KruJoe]

[For Fiats Sake]

I rang the planning department and spoke to the sender of the letter today.  I was asked did people ever come to the house to buy cars (only if previously sold), how many cars (six I said - the one in the garage is non of their business), do I sell them, yes because you sent me a letter....

They  requested I email them with the reg numbers and they would "monitor the situation".

I suppose they want to make sure I'm not "trading".  There was a phrase I can't quite remember along the lines of "within the reasonable bounds of a hobby" as regarding the number of cars a person can have within the bounds of a property.

Anyway since the regata is going to leave a space on the drive I'm picking up another car on Saturday, for some reason both winning bidders declined to even view the car.  It's not mint and will need a bit of work in the future but I bought it for two reasons:

 

Open top pandering for the win!

[vulgalour]

That's the most 90s Panda I've ever seen.

[Tickman]

....... I'm picking up another car on Saturday......

Excellent way of dealing with the 'problem' I really like the way people reduce their fleet on here!

[dollywobbler]

Fabulous. Another fleet reduction plan goes wrong. By which I mean right.

[purplebargeken]

That looks absolutely brilliant.

 

Fleet reduction. A term I have heard bandied about and have even tried doing myself.

 

However, I believe that it actually means: just buy the fucking thing, I'll find space for it somewhere. Sigh. 

[rantingYoof]

II suppose they want to make sure I'm not "trading".  There was a phrase I can't quite remember along the lines of "within the reasonable bounds of a hobby" as regarding the number of cars a person can have within the bounds of a property.

 

This harks back to what I said a while ago about "intensity" of the use. They will have to define what a reasonable number of cars is as a "hobby" rather than a dealer. Such a definition would set a precedent for the entire area and be quite risky.

 

For example, what about a gentleman living on a farm in the middle of nowhere with a half-acre of driveway space who has six cars as a hobby?

 

Then you have to define the space within which the cars are being kept. Is that in square metres? Per car or overall?

 

They'd have a lot of work to do to uphold an enforcement notice at appeal, so I still think it's blustering to try and get a resolution that appeases the complainant.

 

Anyway, this is Autoshite, so you should simply need to prove that each car is being sold after £££s spent at a whopping loss and it'll be blatantly obvious you are not a dealer. Not a successful one, at any rate.

[purplebargeken]

Just tell them to get fucked.

[inconsistant]

A dealer could sell 52 cars a year from home and only ever have one car on his driveway at a time, just a different one each week. No of cars you own bears no relationship at all to being a dealer or not Shirley?

[Timewaster]

Shirley their issue is that you don't sell them. Selling would solve the problem, no?

 

Assuming you keep off of Ebay as soon as the cash is in your pocket.

[alf892]

Excellent response to the twats at the council. And to think that LGA want councils to have even more powers.

 

Anyway you are a collector........as with any collection items come and go.

 

I'd not tell them to fuck off just yet though...........I'd just invite them to quote some actual points of specific law.

 

And then fuck off.

[3VOM]

Unless it has changed, to be considered a trader, you had to buy and sell with the "expectation" of making a profit or buy to sell. Neither is the case here. You can't put a number on it.

[For Fiats Sake]

So as I was minding my own business washing the red Panda ready for Mitcar this weekend when I hear the distinctive beep beep with horrible white noise added of the british gas open backed truck reversing.

I'd parked the modern panda over the road while I moved the cars about abit and it had two further cars parked in front of it and behind, which are nowt to do with me.  The driver doesn't park his truck on his drive or in front of his house but claims part of the footpath with a large hedge behind it for his very own.  I'm nowhere near "his space" but he parks across someones drive and comes marching up to me.

"is that your fiat?" he demands, barely giving me time to answer continues "why can't you keep your scrap cars to yourself, I pay council tax blah blah blah" and storms back to his truck.  "why are you parking a commercial vehicle on a residential street" I shout after him.  "I've got permission". He grunts.  .

He gets in his truck and hits his horn until one of the other neighbours comes out.  They then move one of the cars parked behind mine and he parks.

He had no occasion to approach me as my vehicle wasn't impeding him parking.  I may have moved it had he been civil and not an aggressive bullying cunt.  In fact it the 2 year old car can just stay where it is now, for as long as I see fit.  It is not blocking any driveway and is not obstructing the pavement (unlike the cuntwagon he parks).

 

I'm not a petty man but bullies get my back up. I remembered the car plod gave when they first turned up, no direct number but I ring the 101 and wait ten minutes to be told the friendly copper wasn't on until Thursday.  Not to worry just tell him the bloke with the van has kicked off about parking and come and see the panda man when he's in the area next.

 

My council tax police precept pounds at work there!  

 

My scrap car parked audaciously within 12 yards of the permissified trucks parking spot:

 

 

Film at Eleven!

[Timewaster]

I work for a utility company and last year had a complaint from a nosey neighbour moaning that one off our vans had been parked outside his house while our guy had his driveway done.

 

Cue our guy being in the office and told never to park there again. Customer is king and all that.

[eddyramrod]

I work for a utility company and last year had a complaint from a nosey neighbour moaning that one off our vans had been parked outside his house while our guy had his driveway done.

 

Cue our guy being in the office and told never to park there again. Customer is king and all that.

And this is why businesses can't keep drivers; because they treat us like scum.  Be careful what you wish for, bosses.

[Kiltox]

Is it actually a British Gas vehicle in active service with them?

 

Fairly straightforward phone call if it is about the conduct of their employee....

[Pillock]

Yeah, because customer is king. You've been verbally abused by their employee in uniform driving a liveried van.

[andrew e]

To be fair, I'd be pissed if I wanted to use the pavement and found your panda parked on most of it.

[For Fiats Sake]

Fair enough, you can get passed it though.  You can't get passed the works vehicle though.  I'll check out the livery of the vehicle over the weekend,  He was wearing some sort of work top but wasn't a logo I'd recognised.  Perhaps the fact he leaves at 8 and is never back later than 2:30pm would be of interest to whoever he's employed by?  Certainly spends more time parked on the public footpath than it does driving the public roads.  

I have to say though I don't like grassing people up no matter how unpleasant.

 

Anyway the fleet got a shuffle around and there's a space for the absent 4x4 with plenty of room to tinker around it.

 

I was planning to get the donor car gone asap but as the price of "scrap cars" is on its arse.....

[Timewaster]

And this is why businesses can't keep drivers; because they treat us like scum. Be careful what you wish for, bosses.

I sympathise with the plight of the minimum wage van driver and their unfeasible schedules, but these are workers who use the van to get to their job and they are generally treated fairly. Nobody leaves.

[Richard]

Don't grass the gas man up, that would make you like whoever complained about your cars.

[sierraman]

I had a van with work years ago. Somebody across the road felt it their business to ring up and complain about it as I had parked (perfectly legally not blocking anyone's drive or in front of a house) on 'their cul de sac'. My boss asked if it was parked illegally, which it wasn't, then told them it was tough luck. They'd made the mistake of also obviously identifying themselves and subsequently attempting to be pleasant to me. Told them to keep their nose out. Haven't forgotten so I'm sure a time will come for me to do them a similarly bad turn.

[garbaldy]

Your drive looks massive which is good but if you really can't fit all your toys on that size drive then you would be better of renting storage,

I know that's another expense you don't need to tell me as I rent a few myself due to far to many vehicles,

My drive has 7 vehicles and a trailer and I dare say I could squeeze another 6 or so in but wouldn't want to cause any grief to the neighbours while having to shuffle them all about to get at the one at the back,

[Dave_Q]

The point here is that nobody owns the flipping road.

 

I have "my space" up the side of my house, but we don't actually own it or anything, its a sort of abandoned bit of land between 2 houses.

 

I park there 95% of the time, but if I come home and someone has parked there, I don't go out giving it the biggun, I just park somewhere else.

 

Van man is in the wrong here, I can see that the neighbours might get annoyed with FFS moving his cars about, but they can just do one. Obviously in the name of compromise if I was him I would leave my vehicles parked on the street as little as possible, but within the law he can park every t&td car he owns on the road and nobody can do anything to stop him.

[garbaldy]

Yes that is the law you are right but the the law and consideration are two different things, I've had similar issues in the past hence why I rent storage these days.

[BorniteIdentity]

I guess it depends on your appetite for a fight.  I'm no shrinking violet, but faced with this sort of thing I'd probably be down to about 4 cars by now.

 

Why?

 

1.  If it was bothering me enough to be ranting on the internet about and calling the police about, I'd be looking at what I could do MYSELF to resolve the situation.

 

2.  Life's too bloody short.

 

3.  Just because you CAN, doesn't mean you should.

 

4.  On today's busy roads, there has to be some give + take/comprimise.

 

More often than not I park one of my cars on the road opposite my house to avoid too much shuffling.  My neighbours have never said anything, probably because they're too polite.  But if they even mentioned it once, politely, I'd probably be stopping just  to save face/embarassment/falling out.

 

Then again, this says more about me than what's right/wrong.

 

Just don't gamble your health on it.

[garbaldy]

/\ and that is pretty much what I was trying to say.

[For Fiats Sake]

Whilst moving my cars about yesterday only the modern was left parked where it was the day before, the "overflow" vehicles were parked around the corner on the road side not bothering anyone.

As I said I'm not incllined to grass anyone up, what really got my goat yesterday apart from the bullying approach to me and my neighbours was his insistance on getting others to move that were legally parked.  He could have parked where I had the overflow vehicles but of course that would mean him having to walk 25yards and looking to see if he could park before reversing down the length of the street.

The bloke has probably bullied the other neighbours into letting him claim the street as his and he sees me and my "scrap cars" as a direct threat to his personal theifdom of the street.

 

I'm not getting into a war with this cunt, though I will stand my ground.