VERG-ING ON THE RIDICULOUS Council orders homeowner to restore grass strip

[super jumbe]

VERG-ING ON THE RIDICULOUS Council orders homeowner to restore grass strip outside his house ? 16 YEARS after he replaced it with gravel.



A COUNCIL has ordered a gobsmacked home owner to restore a grass verge outside his house ? 16 YEARS after he replaced it with gravel.

Gordon Harris, 64, was fed up with the turf getting churned up by parked cars and fouled with dog mess and thought it would look better covered in stones.

But a decade-and-a-half later a mystery neighbour has complained ? and the council has promptly ordered him to re-turf the small strip.

Council bosses have told Gordon the gravel is in breach of regulations and given him 28 days to change it back to how it was in the year 2000.

Gordon, of Swindon, Wilts., said: ?The council are supposed to have limited resources and they?re wasting money on things like this.

?What we?ve done is definitely a vast improvement and it looks a lot better than it used to.

?When it was grass, cars would park on the ground and it would get all muddy and churned up, it could get a foot deep when some of the lorries parked on it.

?It would end up covered in dog mess and cat mess, more mud than grass to be honest ? it wasn?t very nice to have right out the front of your house.?

Gordon, who has lived in the semi-detached house with wife Jean for 38 years, added: ?I know I?m going to find a load of dog mess and tyre marks because that?s what was there before.?

Swindon Borough Council said: ?This is one of those cases where the council can?t win.

?A complaint was received from a resident about the gravel, which means we either ignore the complaint or we take it up with the owner of the house.

?We?re happy to discuss the timescale for restoring the verge, but residents can?t simply put gravel on a public highway verge without permission.

?The verges along the rest of the road are covered in grass, which is why we?ve asked for the grass to be restored.

?We appreciate that the gravel may have been laid many years ago, but now it?s been brought to our attention we can?t ignore it.?

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1198199/council-orders-homeowner-to-restore-grass-strip-outside-his-house-16-years-after-he-replaced-it-with-gravel/#

[smirnoff_rules]

so he should , wasnt his to mess with

[nara]

so he should , wasn't his to mess with

Agreed. Typical Sun nonsense.

[ifred]

The the gravel stones have a right to life as well
Agree Non story I wait for a neighbour to abandon untaxed car on the newly grassed strip

[super jumbe]

The grasser will be surprise after this person restoring the land mark the council are going to draw the double yellow line, why want the London council tell residents to do the same when they have removed the grass and are charging customers for parking outside there property, remember this is your property you can do what you want.

[nara]

...remember this is your property you can do what you want.

No it isn't, so no you can't.

[super jumbe]

No it isn't, so no you can't.

Following a change in the law in England in October 2008, planning permission is now required for homeowners wishing to pave a front garden with a hardstanding of more than five square metres if they are not using a permeable material. One of the main reasons for the new legislation is that the conversion of gardens to driveways in urban areas has increased the amount of water that goes into the storm drains when it rains, and this has contributed to the increase in flooding.

There was no planning permission before 2008, we are going back 16 years hear...

[nara]

Following a change in the law in England in October 2008, planning permission is now required for homeowners wishing to pave a front garden with a hardstanding of more than five square metres if they are not using a permeable material. One of the main reasons for the new legislation is that the conversion of gardens to driveways in urban areas has increased the amount of water that goes into the storm drains when it rains, and this has contributed to the increase in flooding.

There was no planning permission before 2008, we are going back 16 years hear...

I think you need to read your original post again SJ.(and look at the picture) You seem to be missing the point here.

[ifred]

I reckon its only so they can charge him for the green bags to take his grass cuttings away and then resell them back to him as compost
otherwise they would ban him from cutting the grass on the verge HSE and risk assessment.
Surely these days to cut grass verge you need a license, three month prior notice, attend several training courses, Have ?5M insurance, yellow jacket, approved mower, bollards and road closure.

He was doing them a favour gravel only needs an occasional washdown

[super jumbe]

This is off topics
You talking like the Irael govt, the palestina houses are demolished because they do not have planning permission in the occupied land; this is called use force to the weak under the govt law and not under the human rights, know wonder immigrants are coming to Europe when they have no were to go.
There is no more car paring places around, one day we will all be forced to have a parking bay were ever possible, just a common sense.

[albertros]

Strange, when I lay gravel it grows grass?

They should give him a job.

[GastonJ]

SJ you are missing the point. The guy removed grass, on land that wasn't his, and put down stones - probably so his mates could park off road. Now if he wandered along to your house, which again isn't his land, and removed the grass form your garden (from land you own) to lay stones down so his mates could park in your garden you'd be well pi$$ed off.

With regards the planning you quoted it was also designed to make sure that the covering was permeable, that is when it rained the water soaked through it rather than laid on top and flooded out areas, in much teh same way as we see today on the news. It seems hat people don't appear to think about water run off when they're creating concrete jungles of their gardens and end up being flooded, or flooding their neighbours house, and then complaining about it, daft ckers

[super jumbe]

If you want to talk into health and safety issues, he got rid of dog mess water staying deep into tyre marks and I still think he did the right thing.

[GastonJ]

The way to make sure dog mess doesn't appear is to shoot every passing dog, easy. The way to stop tyre marks is to throw a few dozen nails and screws into the grass, soon stops 'em. He's obviously a Sun reader anyway, so everything he says or does must be right....... Usual tw@


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[nara]

SJ you are missing the point. The guy removed grass, on land that wasn't his, and put down stones - probably so his mates could park off road. Now if he wandered along to your house, which again isn't his land, and removed the grass form your garden (from land you own) to lay stones down so his mates could park in your garden you'd be well pi$$ed off.

Well thank f*** somebody can read. desismileys_3334.gif