Renting units/Garages

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Yesterday I thought I'd look into renting a garage so that I can have a place where I can practise shite-fixing, or rather shite-destruction, on the Accord or whatever unfortunate heap of crap comes into my hands (preferably not my main car) without passers-by laughing at me or the wind filling my face with used engine oil or whatever. Reading the various threads that make tangential references to rented garages, the casual reader of this forum would have assumed that this operation is just a question of ringing the local council, agreeing to a price, signing a bit of paper then diving straight into the bowels of the godforsaken estate where the unit is situated.

 

Unfortunately, I am gutted to report that, at least round here, the above is terribly RONG.

Here is what happened: I went to the website of the city council, found a number that looked vaguely relevant to the request, called. They gave me another number I had to call, which I did...and had to wait for 5 minutes before they bothered to pick it up (no, it wasn't a "please wait" system, I just figured out they aren't very good). When they eventually answered, the following dialogue took place:

 

- Hello, I'd like to rent a garage to store a classic car in [desperately trying to sound respectable].

- Hang on a second (asks round the office, comes back a minute later). We don't rent garages for storage.

- But I will put a CAR in, surely that must be the point of garages?

- Will you be using the car?

- Well, probably not every single day, but yes I'll be using it.

- Ah, ok then. Are you a COUNCIL TENANT?

- No, I rent privately, but what role does that play?

- [sounds very disappointed] Ah, I see...you are NOT a council tenant then [getting a bit snobbish by this point].

- No, I am not, but I wouldn't have thought it makes any difference.

- Yes, but you still have to go on a waiting list like with a house...Whereabouts do you live?

- In the city centre, but I am not bothered about the exact location of the garage.

- We can only rent you a garage that's near your home address [asks around the office]. The nearest ones to the centre are Chodtown and Mingingville (I actually had never heard of the places she was talking about- probably referring to a single-street neighbourhood or something).

- Alright, that'll do. Get me on that list. What's the waiting time like?

- We don't know, it doesn't depend on us.

- Can you not find any other location that actually has something available now?

- No, we can't.

- Kthxbai

 

WTF...It's like I was asking them to do me the biggest favour of EVA. Shall I try talking to the neighbouring councils, or will it get me into a permanent state of depression?

[revolting peasant]

[tonedepear]

When I first moved to Sheff (9 years ago) there was something like a 5 year (approx) waiting list for a lock up. In that time they've sold them all off to various housing associations and/or knocked them down, so there's far fewer now than there was. You might be better served ringing round Worksop council or similar backwater shitholes who may still have lock ups to rent. Or just moving house, which is what I did in the end, and it sounds like would solve all your current problems?

 

Sounds like they're still saying basically the same, and remain as helpful as always. Cunts.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

haha I rang Barnsley, Rotherham and Chesterfield and they 've all got long waiting lists. At least they were a bit more helpful than Sheffield. I'll try Worksop, too.

 

I would hate to move. The location is excellent, very central but also very civilised...Plus the landlord is a class act and, best of all, he is on one of those bubble-fuelled "shared ownership" schemes and effectively pays me to stay here.

[tonedepear]

haha I rang Barnsley, Rotherham and Chesterfield and they 've all got long waiting lists. At least they were a bit more helpful than Sheffield. I'll try Worksop, too.

 

I would hate to move. The location is excellent, very central but also very civilised...Plus the landlord is a class act and, best of all, he is on one of those bubble-fuelled "shared ownership" schemes and effectively pays me to stay here.

 

That makes some sense then! There used to be some lock ups in Dronfield as well, which probably has a smaller market.

[ProgRocker]

How unhelpful. If anything, cash strapped councils should be grateful from the income from renting garages, be they council tenants or private residents. Helps free up the streets of parked cars too.

 

I decided to rent a lock up garage from Norwich City Council 10 years ago and got one straight away. It was a 5 minute walk from where I lived. Picked up the keys dinner time and after work went to inspect the new garage. To my surprise, a mark 2 Ford Fiesta with XR2 alloys on it was already parked in there. I called the police on the non-emergency number to explain the situation and gave them the reg plate of the car. Turned out to be a stolen car. A couple of coppers came round, we drove to the lock up and I showed them the car. They arranged for the car to be recovered by a flat bed.

 

I explained what happened to the council and they were very good. For some reason (perhaps as I feared that the scallies had a copy key to the garage), they offered me a lock-up garage two spaces down. Norwich City Council were very good in this situation, which is interesting because they are not that well managed, imo.

[Lankytim]

When I lived in Birmingham all you had to do was ring a council number, get given another number, ring that, go on hold for 10 mins, eventually speak to a stoned Rasafarian at the council (Yah blood we got dem garages, ow many ya waaant?) and later that day he would drop by with a key. £3.50 a week too! I think its gone up to £4 now though. I rented about 3 at one point. One garage had an empty derelict one next to it so I used that too. Bliss!

 

When I moved to Stoke 5 years ago I thought it would be the same deal. Nope! The woman on the phone was pretty rude and sharp with me and said the waiting list was 3 years minimum for a garage miles from my house. When I said it was for a project car she expalined that it had to be an everyday car, NOT storage and hung up on me. Slag.

 

I think the big difference is that Birmingham have thousands of empty garages that are getting vanadalised and fly tipped and any sort of occupant saves them money as the tennant tends to look after the area to a certain extent. Stoke council simply demolished 99% of their garage stock to save a few quid leaving the population with FUCK ALL.

[Father Ted]

I have been on Preston Councils waiting list for 15 years.

They are systematically getting rid of their lock ups.

SRBC no longer have any - the last of them was sold off when they extended the railway station car park and the local housing association have about a dozen.

There are 4 private garages for sale within a 2 minute walk for £6000 a piece. i ahve approached the vendor several times to ask about renal, but despite being empty since they were finished 3 years ago its no beans - its sale or nothing.

I dont have 6 large ones

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

the ridiculous thing is that there seems to be a bias in favour of council tenants- gr9 4 benefits cheats driving RAGE rovers.

[boobydoo]

It was dead easy to get a garage off North Herts Council ....no wait time at all. They even give you a key to go and inspect it to make sure it's what you need. They've all been refurbished with new doors and roofs.

 

I currently have five that I rent , all within a 40 minute walk from me. They've never asked what I do in them. Also when I've phoned up to complain about faulty locks or blocked drains nearby they've attended to it straight away.

 

The downside? They just increased the weekly rent from £8 to £10.40...plus VAT!! Robbing pirate bastards.

[Tayne]

.

[boobydoo]

^^^ Yeah, i did look a while ago but couldn't find anything within reasonable distance. A friend struck lucky with an old barn in Hitchin. He pays £260 a month and I reckon that would hold six cars. It's fairly dilapidated though...birds get in and shit everywhere. He keeps the odd motor up there but mainly spare parts.....one of my Tagoras lurks under a cover nearby!!

[Lord Sterling]

A fair while ago when coming to the end of a works contract that wasnt going to be renewed I needed somewhere to store my Rover 827Si, it had previously been in a crash and despite being repaired just wasnt the same. I contacted a couple of councils, Birmingham City and Telford and Wrekin, Telford and Wrekin got back to me within a week, a week later I picked up the keys to my (rather small) domestic garage.

 

They were advertising garages to rent and I took them up on thier offer. The rent was reasonable at about £30 a month and I didnt need to be a Council Tenant in Telford. Whilst it was a little too far from my house, it wasn somewhere reasonable, quiet, secure and legal to keep my car whilst it was off road. The only probelms were, it didnt have lights, or an electricity point and was a fair squeeze for a such a big car, in fact I had to take the rear bumper off to fit it in the garage, but the positives outweighed the negatives.

 

I'm in the process of giving up the garage now as I just cannot afford it and the last to be stored there is at a mates garage awaiting repair.

[revolting peasant]

[flat4alfa]

Phoned local council, I'm also in Bedfordshire

 

Had a choice of three in a high-gated, Abloy padlocked council block. Dry too.

 

Trouble is it is £9.40 a week because I'm not a council tenant. Otherwise I'd be finding £6. WAIT! I am nnnnnot going to moan about paying under a tenner when the council 10 miles south of here sold their blocks off to private speculators and now they are £25 p/w. Oh no.

[sierraman]

Put my name down on the waiting list for a council lock up. Had the idea of using it as a store for getting a spare focus or mondeo to strip then use it as a parts store. Anyone else done this? Rent should be around £2-3 a week for a pretty horrible corrugated tin shed concern.

[Pillock]

Check they don't ban you from working on cars there, and you'll probably have no power so impact drivers and stuff will need to be battery. Apart from that, excellent plan!

[steveo3002]

yeah best not mention working on anything and if you do keep the door half shut and try and be discreet so some guts ache wont grass you up

 

we pay £35 a month so £2 a week is alright 

[castros_bro]

That's cheap darn sauf we pay

 

Annual rental, 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2016 (Monthly payment can be arranged):

    £560.76 to £1350.

[Lord Sterling]

Be careful about what you say to the council. In my experience they'll want a reg of the car you are keeping in the garage, I doubt they actually check unless there is some sort of suspicious activity.

 

I do see lots of people using lock ups for different things mostly for keep spare car/bike/boat/caravan parts and/or project cars. Very few people actually use one to keep daily vehicles in (unless they are giffers seemingly) be discreet as you'll get some curtain-twitchers on the phone to the council belly-aching over it's use.

 

I pay £28 per month for mine in Telford, Shropshire as Bournville Village trust is building houses up there and seem to have acquired some garages in different estates, probably a whole load of formally council-owned garages.

[Ben_O]

I had two.

 

Both were repetitively broken into.

 

just sayin..

[Pillock]

Mine's not council admittedly, but owned by the local garage.

They did ask what I was keeping in there when I signed up, I said "Erm...... a car" with a slightly puzzled look. Apparently they had one guy who rented for a few months, stopped paying, stopped answering letters and when they forced the door there was loads of building rubble and crap that needed them to pay to have it hauled away. 

 

I pay £6 a week, but it's getting knocked down and probably not replaced at the end of the year.....

[sierraman]

I had one years ago. You're right about the asking about the car that's gettin kept in it. You can either pay £12 pw for a brick built jobbie or you can pay £2 for the site plus an old garage that's on it. It could be good like a concrete job or it could be awful. So long as it's not asbestos as its my responsibility.

[UltraWomble]

Both the council & LHA's round here have sold off their lock ups - most have been bought by developers and flattened.

This is the only one remotely nearby (8 miles away)

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/commercial-property-for-sale/property-37276497.html- £8000

[Sloth in a bowl]

Birmingham council has flogged hundreds of garages over the past year as well as many random plots of land. For they is broker than broke.

 

I saw one bit that wasn't too far from home, long driveway, open parking room for about 10 vehicles and guide price of £5,000. It sold for £25,000 and will have a house built on it.

No cheap land left in the West Midlands unless a toxic slurry pit.

[Jikovron]

12 quid a week for me, and its been handy due to short notice of hiding away more broken cars but a bane also because of that, location matters most for me as the current one is no use for anything other than a quick visit and subtle parts retrieval/depositing as its in an area where allsorts of daft situations arise there

[stripped fred]

I pay about £38 a month for my one in Leicester. They didn't ask what car I was keeping there. They did get me to sign an agreement though which I think included not working on the car but I have and it's not been a problem.

[AlabamaShrimp]

I've go two. Council do t seem to care what you do as two old bloke both mess with their cars there all the time. Can't remember how much they cost but it's between £50-100 a year.

 

There's some space left and I've thought about asking if they'll let me put a container or two there

[UltraWomble]

The best I can do it seems is rent an underground parking space for £50 PCM in the centre of Preston.

 

Im sort of debating doing this as it will be the same (more or less) as paying weekly parking when I resume my studies at the Uni in January ( 2 days week at £5.50/day). Then it will give me a place to stash some chod without the missus either i) knowing about it or ii) giving me grief about it.

 

 

Another alternative is outside parking at the local caravan storage place for £40/month - my dads old garage is currently full of knackered Citroen so I cant use that and this will be used against me bu SWMBO should I pitch up with something else...

[Cavcraft]

I pay about £8 per week (each) for mine.