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

[Dave_Q]

This is an interesting turn of events. The 5 car number comes from the Aylesbury case IMO. I would be interested to see how they proceed if you refuse to comply.

 

Ultimately in my uneducated opinion, if you're not trading, which you can easily prove, and the cars are not a statutory nuisance, then it's not a change of use and you would stand a decent chance of winning vs the council in court.

 

Obviously I am not a lawyer, t&cs apply etc.

 

Perhaps write back offering to reduce to 6 cars or whatever you're comfortable with, they surely want to avoid court etc if possible.

[Dave_Q]

11. The garden is relatively large but the vast majority of the space within the garden is taken up by stored cars and the gazebos. Some of the vehicles can be seen from public vantage points but adjoining occupiers are exposed toviews of what was garden and now is land turned over to use for vehicle storage. In my view the level of storage is such that it is not reasonable to consider this to be at a level that is incidental to the enjoyment of the dwellinghouse.

 

12. The number of vehicles kept within the garden and the extent of the storage use has totally altered the character of the land from that of a domestic garden to a vehicle storage area. The level of the vehicle storage use amounts to a material change of use because it falls outside what might be reasonable to expect within the garden of a dwelling-house.

 

13. I have explained above that development includes the making of a material change of use of land. The level of storage of motor vehicles within the garden amounts to a material change of use because of its adverse impact on the character and appearance of the area. The exception provided by Section 55(2)(d) of the 1990 Act does not apply in this case because the storage of vehicles is not for a purpose that is incidental to the enjoyment of the dwellinghouse. Finally, no express grant of planning permission for the change of use had been granted. Accordingly, there has been a breach of planning control and the appeal on Ground © must fail.

 

Quoting this from the Aylesbury appeal as IMO its the key difference to your situation.

 

The main reasons this appeal failed was because of the material change of use of the GARDEN, in your case surely to god using a drive to park cars on can't be a change of use full stop.

A few complete cars can't be considered to impact negatively on the character of the area either IMO, I think the council would really struggle to get this to stick.

[dave21478]

I think its time for proper (payable, but what can you do?) legal advice.

[Parky]

I would be inclined to write a nice letter asking the council to clarify under which English/British/EU law (delete as applicable) you are currently in breach of?

 

If it is a council or housing association property that has something in the T&C's about it you probably can't do very much legally, but as far as I can see you haven't broken any laws. Even Mr Trebus didn't get this level of harassment!

 

I would be interested to know what action the council can take. How about getting one of our Journo's to call the council and tell them they are following your story and wouldn't mind a comment from the council before printing a story about how your private property is no longer private? Or something. When the clerk gets a call from a Journo about you they will very probably shit themselves unless the law is totally on their side.

[Parky]

Or just tell them that selling them would make you a trader and it is illegal to trade vehicles from home etc

[Matt]

IMO, I think the council would really struggle to get this to stick.

 

The Council knows that too...

 

Please let me know whether, or not, there is a realistic possibility of you reducing the numbers of vehicles kept at your property to no more than 4 within the next 3 months ?[/size]

That's not 'we are saying that no more than four is reasonable and you must comply this number within 3 months', that's bargaining to find a solution. So far as I can tell that's because it's all they've got left to try.

 

 Selling some of your vehicles to reduce numbers would not be something the Council was concerned about.[/size]

 

They know full well that no business trading is going on but for whatever reason the poor bod(s) that have been tasked with dealing with this aren't able to drop it by the sound it. I wonder if they could even do anything if FFF just stopped communicating with them.

 

"[...]would not be something the council was concerned about". Would not be concerned about or was not concerned about? LRN 2 ENGLISH.

[eddyramrod]

My parents had a dose of this 33 years ago from some numpty neighbour.  We were fairly sure it was the one trying to sell his house, no 57 when we lived at 61...

The (long) drive and (huge and invisible-from-road) back garden were liberally stuffed with cars, I think there were 12 for a while, but most of them were simply old sheds that we had been using and when they ran out of MoT, we just parked.  In those days it didn't matter that several makes and models were represented, as so much of a car was interchangeable, so they were a useful source of parts for the two or three we were actually running.

In the end my dad befriended an Irish traveller who came knocking for scrap, and let him take a load away.

 

Edit: probably isn't much help, sorry, but at least you know someone sympathises!

[Dead_E23]

Send them a link to this video and say it'll be no problem because you'd been considering a new hobby anyway:

 

[Justin Case]

Third time to do a post but it keeps vanishing while I'm typing.

 

Had another communique from the council.

 

"  In the terms of planning legislation parking cars on your drive would not normally require express planning permission. It would be considered to be a use incidental to the enjoyment of the dwelling house.

 

Please let me know whether, or not, there is a realistic possibility of you reducing the numbers of vehicles kept at your property to no more than 4 within the next 3 months ?  

This could be taken as the opening move in a long drawn out negotiation. You could respond by saying that 4 within 3 months is unrealistic, especially with most of that period being taken up with Christmas, but that you regard 6 within 6 months (down to 8 within a year might be pushing it a bit ) as a target even though it is unlikely to be a realistic one. That should buy you a couple of months time  before anything is agreed, councils invariably work at a snail's pace, and even then after the six months you can show that you have taken reasonable, but ultimately unsuccessful attempts to dispose of your fleet and the saga could continue indefinitely on that basis. For a modus operandi (which may or may not involve small Renaults ) may I recommend 'The Good Soldier Schweik' by Jaroslav Hasek.

 

HTH   JC

[angle]

Again, shout if you want some advice from a proper qualified planner. That's not me, but its the sort of thing my boss would find interesting, she's odd like that.

 

I would reply and ask how they're defining 'reasonable', stressing that all the cars are owned by you, that there's no commercial aspect to them being kept there, and that they're all stored within areas that are intended for the storage of cars, i.e. driveway or garage. Ask them why 4 is reasonable, but a higher amount isn't - basically make them do the legwork.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Write back and politely tell them something like 'Thanks for the letter. I'll see what I can do'

 

Then basically just carry on.

 

I reckon if they have something from you that suggests you are taking it seriously they will forget all about it until such time as your moaning neighbour chases them up, which might be months or years or never.

[Alfamale]

Surely if the excess were advertised on a free medium, at let's say around £ 10k each, then you could demonstrate that you are making efforts to reduce the fleet.

 

Obviously if none sell then you can't be blamed for the prevailing market conditions.

[cobblers]

Bollox has hit it on the head - they've acknowledged that there's no actual regulations on this, so it all boils down to that they would "like you to have less cars". Unless there's some covenant on your property regulating how many vehicles you can have (but those are a nightmare to try and do owt with)

 

I'd like my neighbours to have less kids, more jobs and more teeth and a flippin hoover but as far as the law is concerned they can have as many or as little of all of them, sadly. 

 

Show them willing and say you'll try and get rid of a few and the lass at the council who's sending these soft letters will push it to the back of her workload for as long as possible, which will depend on how much your neighbours nag them. She'll have a load of actual proper nuisance people to deal with much more urgently.

 

If you can show a couple of motors going then you'll be doing more than enough 

[Guest Lord Sward]

I fucking hate councils.

[rantingYoof]

I'll try and respond with more info later but I could tl;dr it now by saying, after reading that correspondence, I'd now be inclined to respond and put the onus on the council to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that an unauthorised change of use of land has taken place.

 

The only word of caution I'd give is that the council may change its mind and decide that it's untidy land they want to do you for (Section 215), and whether that sticks or not depends on how your currently non-roadworthy cars are presented.

 

As a yardstick, the enforcement officer at our place would require it to look 'abandoned', so I doubt this would apply to you.

 

Anyway, I agree with what someone else said about googling for some local planning consultants and paying a smidgen for some advice and maybe a headed letter.

 

It might just take that to convince the council it's not going to be expedient.

 

Oh, that was tl;dr...nevermind!

 

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

[STUNO]

In today's paper here. A chap has been acquitted of the MURDER of his very annoying neighbour That surprised me a wee bit, but it had apparently been ongoing for some years, and he had been trying to get all the authorities to do something without any success.

So there is hope after all !

[chaseracer]

How many Fiats did he own?

 

[Mr_Bo11ox]

A happy ending!

[STUNO]

The article re murder. That is all I know of it.

 

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11746824

[For Fiats Sake]

I haven't seen the transit pickup for a week, I do hope nothing trivials happened...

 

Negotiation seems to be the right response to the letter, I don't want to end up with the threatened PCN.

 

For my own peace of mind I'd rather sacrifice a couple of cars and get the monkey off my back than get involved in a legal argument which could ultimately lose me a lot more in terms of stress. anxiety and cash.

 

If anyone would like the Uno or a the gasket Panda you know where to come.

[Dave_Q]

Fair play FFS, just be careful what you say as you don't want it to look like you're admitting that you think you're in breach of any regulations just in case they try to use it against you in the future.

 

I would state quite clearly that you do not believe or accept that you are in breach of any planning regs, but regardless of that you intend to sell X cars within Y time, will they please just do one etc.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Sell a couple of motors (at your own pace obvs). Make a big fuss of telling the council you've sold them, send them copies of reciepts or whatever. Bask in your postition as a responsible member of your local community. Wait a couple of weeks than just buy some more cars. SORTED

[HillmanImp]

I desperately need storage for a few of my cars. Can I keep them parked on the road on your street? It looks like there's loads of room?

 

I have a £95 Almera, A £100 Skoda Favorit, a £50 Rover 218d and a £99 Shitty Rover.

[Timewaster]

Name change to Three Fiats Sake on the cards?

[martybabes]

I fucking hate councils.

 

The person writing the letter on behalf of the Council probably doesn't want to write such a letter but his arm is being twisted (possibly for political gain or possibly because someone is making a lot of noise).  The easiest option for the OP is not to challenge the Council to justify the legislation or to ask what they think is a reasonable number of cars.  Simply saying that you'll do your best to reduce the numbers as soon as you can covers the middle ground without having time limits or other restrictions hanging over you.

 

The Council's case is a thin as waffer-thin mints (and they know it).  Buy they are being pushed to do something.  Writing to you in the manner they did is about all they can do.

 

I am not a lawyer etc.  Oh, wait a minute, I am.

[rantingYoof]

The council's arm is literally being twisted by a vocal resident. If they act upon the complaint with force then they're bastards for demanding someone with driveway space and a hobby change their situation. If they don't act upon it they're bastards for not listening or acting upon the concerns of residents who 'pay their wages' and/or 'pay their council tax'.

 

As martybabes says, the wording on the letter/email is a more diplomatic way of saying 'we have no case but it'd be awfully nice if you could do this as it would mean we could say we've done enough to tell an angry complainant to do one'.

 

If you're happy to get rid of a couple then fair play to you. I categorically would state in any response to them that you find it ironic that in order to allay the council's fears that you are running a car dealership/business from the property, you must sell some cars from the property.

 

That sort of thing has to go on file, y'see, and it's nice knowing that sort of point will be kept forever.

[Ghosty]

I agree with a lot of the above advice, tell the council you'll have a go etc. If they're all on the drive I really don't see what the issue is.

 

<pedant>Nowhere does it say FFS has to sell his cars, the council can't do that. The council are only asking that he removes them from his property. FFS has chosen to do this by (somewhat ironically) selling some of them, as opposed to finding alternative storage</pedant>.

 

If I was in that position, I wouldn't want to sell any cars!

[Parky]

I suppose a spiteful response would be to leave taxed vehicles on the road (as previously suggested) so the driveway is now clear of Fiats. That way the council and the neighbour get exactly what they want, your driveway will now be tidy.

 

Your neighbour sounds like a proper arsehole by the way. Perhaps you should invite him over for a tea and a chat and see if you then get a note from the council insisting you mow your lawn or tidy up the DVD's next to the TV.

 

He obviously needs a hobby. Maybe we should club together and buy him a resto project, like an old Panda or something?

[Dead_E23]

Perhaps he would enjoy gardening?

 

Chuck some Japanese Knotweed over his fence.

[Tamworthbay]

We could have complained about our ex neighbour as her house was full to the gunnels, her garden was a complete mess, she had a ratty old caravan on the front as extra storage for her tat and more still in the old Ka on the drive.

 

But the reason we didn't is because I couldn't give a shit what people do in their own homes as long as it doesn't affect me. I did have to go round for a chat when the batshit crazy old bird started planting stuff in our garden because it looked nice. I can't say I was too sorry when she popped her clogs though.

 

The new bloke works as a toolmaker for a classic car part maker and is into old land rovers. Result!