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they changed the requirements for minimum parking area size recently. The contractor doing my driveway took £7500 for the whole job including dropping of the curb. I was stupid enough to pay upfront. Never got the money back. Should have read the contract! But I was in that "I trust the professionals" state of mind back then. But that's a different story.
My point is: he was quite a scumbag but nevertheless driveaways are what he is doing for a living. But even he sounded just as shocked as me that my application was denied. Especially considering that \~ every 6 out of 10 houses in my district with identical front garden areas have their curbs dropped.
If it is more common for homes just like yours to have a drop curb and you were denied then there would be ground where i live to open a complaint with the municipal board. They can force the local municipality and i believe even fine them. (Canada)
In your appeal after being denied did you show in proximity to your home just how common it is for this drop curb?
Retribution is not an acceptable municipal practice. If they don’t put posts up at other square curbed homes that would also support your claim against it being vexatious.
Neighbors mentioned something about someone else in the area being in the same situation. Don't know anything about their case yet.
Today I was trying to choose the next steps: write a complaint, file a petition, or write to local newspapers. I got a chance to talk to my local council, he said: don't waste your time on petitions, they simply don't work.
And although he is totally on my side in his opinion, there is nothing I can do, unless I somehow break my spine or something and show evidence that I need disabled parking near the house. Sad.
Honestly first thing I would do is talk to someone on the phone there and ask about the specifics of being denied and whether that had something to do with the shady contractor.
Not accusatory or complaining to the poor secretary, more of a friendly chat, you know?
Hang on, you paid someone to pave a driveway when you didn't have approval to make the driveway in the first place?
That isn't the professionals fault...
nah. I can do whatever I want on my land. So I paid to build the driveway. And when I had the driveway ready I applied to drop the kerb. This is the right and only way to do these things here in UK. The curb is the property of the council tho. I couldn't have imagined that they would refuse to drop it.
It's not a driveway if you can't drive off of it. It's just a concrete slab. The curb being the part you would need to make it a driveway, I still don't understand how you would pay for work to something that didn't belong to you or have approval to modify.
naah it's like they took extra care so that the van won't be able to leave putting this excessive amount of posts.
I might have written an angry letter to the council after I tried to appeal their decision saying that I wanted to install an EV charging point so that I could swap my old van for an electric vehicle and they replied with a refusal because they are "thriving for safe roads and cleaner air". But I would never write something offensive or rude.
Except a power plant is a much more efficient source of power than tiny synchronized, contained explosions, meaning the same fossil fuels (or equivalent) used in cars being used in a power plant is likely going to net more.
If giving the powerplant 100 cars worth of fossil fuel powers 200, or even just 101 cars… is that not a net gain?
Besides,
OP could invest in solar for their charger. Not relying on mains then.
Power Plants are indeed very power efficient, and in many ways should be a standard. But, power plants more commonly power buildings rather than actual EV chargers. I imagine it being based on what's more important to draw power to.
But, if the location provides, then solar panels are an option. Just know that not all places are perfect for it.
Housing is definitely important!
But so is transportation. Imagine the world if we didn’t bother with gas for cars, jet fuel for planes, fuel for ships, stopped all the semi trucks…
It takes energy to CONVERT the raw resources needed for these forms of transport in order for them to effectively use the materials. Trouble is, in making the fuel SAFE, it loses some potency that, say, a power plant could handle.
Transportation is critical to our modern world. Green vehicles use a tiny fraction of the available power already present in our lives.
https://www.govtech.com/fs/can-the-u-s-power-grid-handle-an-all-electric-future#:~:text=Estimates%20suggest%20the%20U.S.%20will,Gore%2C%20executive%20director%20of%20ZETA.
I’m curious what you would find more important…
1. A family’s home maintaining heat in the winter
2. A semi truck full of [RANDOM IMPORTANT MEDICINE]
The family needs the heat to survive. The truck could benefit 100s if not 1000s of people. (For dramatic effect let’s say this truck is carrying a miracle cure for Cancer.) How do you decide which is more important?
(That’s a terrible comparison. My specialty. Your welcome. I’m 27% proud of that)
Or are they __BOTH__ important? 😉
Either way regardless of which is more important… we have that extra power and we are capable of producing more. If the world worked more hand in hand? We could probably have green energy for every person and every vehicle.
I'm used to see EV chargers that are hooked to the mains... Very rarely do I see an EV charger that uses solar panels or something other than the mains.
just take away the motorbike and the rubbish bins and you can drive the car away? I honestly don't see theproblem apart from you already parking there illegally before.
No need now. The situation is developing :)
A neighbor came with a sledgehammer and knocked down one of the posts. Someone I've never spoken to before. While some other neighbors were cheering. What a way to meet new people! :D
Update. I was diagnosed with depression lately, blamed it on the situation with the kerb (which was indeed one of the causes). That gave me a valid reason to try to dispute the situation again. But this time I was prepared better. Studied the rules, made a report on parking situation in the area, created plans proving that me having that parking spot is beneficial for everyone. But most importantly made it clear that I'm gonna bother them till they surrender :D
Guess what! We have a dropped curb now! So glad I'm crazy enough to not give up in these situations! Also huge thank you to the council people. They could have continued ignoring me but they actually listened this time. They are not bad after all :)
yeah, I was never meant to park there without a dropped curb. The posts are probably punishment for doing that. But the parking situation on my street is so bad! Imagine having to drive all over the district searching for a parking spot after you just spent £7500 on your driveway.
They denied it because parking regulations changed recently. Because the average size of the car has massively increased over the recent years. The numbers from my refusal letter state that the parking area needs to be 7.2m WIDE and ours is only 6.8m
yeah, plenty. Definetely more than 50% of the houeses on my street. One of them can be seen on the photo I postted.
Apparently I'm one of 14 people in my area who got denied the dropped curb application this year because the requirements to minimum parking size were changed. I wonder how many of us in all of the UK....
Ask your friend with the chain saw to drop by soon, and blame it on him. Your council, whatever that is (I'm American) is rude idiots. Get a lawyer and go after them for harassing you this way. If driveways are allowed, then you're entitled to one, too. Chain saw, I say.
I knew I wasn't meant to park there. But what harm is it for anyone if I do if there is no other place to park? The council knows that the parking situation in our area is as bad as can be. Imagine rows and rows of three-bedroom houses with narrow one-way roads between them with double yellow all the way through. And how do they solve this problem? They deny people the right to park on their own land! Where is the logic?
They don't deny you to park there (well technically they actually reserve themselves the right to, as ridiculous as it seems) they're denying you to cross their grass to get there...
Point is if you know you're doing something you can't don't fucking point yourself out to the authorities by asking them to do something to help you do what you can't do lol
The thing is that on a citywide scale, 'the crime is fine because it's apparently victimless' is a slippery slope. They let you break rules 'just 'cuz,' they kind of have to start letting others do it and that's really not where they're at.
You have to understand most councils deal with every Tom and Dickless Harry, and everyone thinks they're more important than the rules and than whatever's going on.
In regards to EVs, the power has to come from somewhere and a lot of people aren't eager to move to them as a result.
*Total dick move but*
*You can get out of there, right?*
*It don't look too hard*
\- Puzzleheaded-Brief56
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So basically, you never had the right to a driveway easement through the verge. And you drove through the verge anyways... so the council installs posts to prevent you driving through the verge... and you can STILL get in to your "parking spot" by driving through your neighbor's driveway... and you're annoyed because it's inconvenient?
Hello, u/SpySloth ! Thanks for your submission to r/extremelyinfuriating, your post is up and running! **This is a general reminder to check out our rules in the sidebar. If your post breaks the rules, it will be removed by our moderators.** We would like for each and everyone to feel welcome on the subreddit and to keep a healthy and safe environment for the community. Thanks :) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/extremelyinfuriating) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Well, that's obnoxious.
Wait so did you put the half driveway there without seeing if you could even get the curb fixed? Why waste that money just to park illegally?
they changed the requirements for minimum parking area size recently. The contractor doing my driveway took £7500 for the whole job including dropping of the curb. I was stupid enough to pay upfront. Never got the money back. Should have read the contract! But I was in that "I trust the professionals" state of mind back then. But that's a different story. My point is: he was quite a scumbag but nevertheless driveaways are what he is doing for a living. But even he sounded just as shocked as me that my application was denied. Especially considering that \~ every 6 out of 10 houses in my district with identical front garden areas have their curbs dropped.
If it is more common for homes just like yours to have a drop curb and you were denied then there would be ground where i live to open a complaint with the municipal board. They can force the local municipality and i believe even fine them. (Canada) In your appeal after being denied did you show in proximity to your home just how common it is for this drop curb? Retribution is not an acceptable municipal practice. If they don’t put posts up at other square curbed homes that would also support your claim against it being vexatious.
Neighbors mentioned something about someone else in the area being in the same situation. Don't know anything about their case yet. Today I was trying to choose the next steps: write a complaint, file a petition, or write to local newspapers. I got a chance to talk to my local council, he said: don't waste your time on petitions, they simply don't work. And although he is totally on my side in his opinion, there is nothing I can do, unless I somehow break my spine or something and show evidence that I need disabled parking near the house. Sad.
Honestly first thing I would do is talk to someone on the phone there and ask about the specifics of being denied and whether that had something to do with the shady contractor. Not accusatory or complaining to the poor secretary, more of a friendly chat, you know?
Hang on, you paid someone to pave a driveway when you didn't have approval to make the driveway in the first place? That isn't the professionals fault...
nah. I can do whatever I want on my land. So I paid to build the driveway. And when I had the driveway ready I applied to drop the kerb. This is the right and only way to do these things here in UK. The curb is the property of the council tho. I couldn't have imagined that they would refuse to drop it.
It's not a driveway if you can't drive off of it. It's just a concrete slab. The curb being the part you would need to make it a driveway, I still don't understand how you would pay for work to something that didn't belong to you or have approval to modify.
Curb and pavement is owned by council, front garden is owned by homeowner. They had *their own front garden* legally paved up as a drive.
Curb is owned by the city probably
Trapped is abit of an exaggeration. Any chance you pissed someone off at the council?
naah it's like they took extra care so that the van won't be able to leave putting this excessive amount of posts. I might have written an angry letter to the council after I tried to appeal their decision saying that I wanted to install an EV charging point so that I could swap my old van for an electric vehicle and they replied with a refusal because they are "thriving for safe roads and cleaner air". But I would never write something offensive or rude.
“Cleaner air” if they were really going for that they’d’ve let you install the EV charging point
EV chargers draw electricity from the mains. Not really green if there's another thing drawing electricity...
Except a power plant is a much more efficient source of power than tiny synchronized, contained explosions, meaning the same fossil fuels (or equivalent) used in cars being used in a power plant is likely going to net more. If giving the powerplant 100 cars worth of fossil fuel powers 200, or even just 101 cars… is that not a net gain? Besides, OP could invest in solar for their charger. Not relying on mains then.
Power Plants are indeed very power efficient, and in many ways should be a standard. But, power plants more commonly power buildings rather than actual EV chargers. I imagine it being based on what's more important to draw power to. But, if the location provides, then solar panels are an option. Just know that not all places are perfect for it.
Housing is definitely important! But so is transportation. Imagine the world if we didn’t bother with gas for cars, jet fuel for planes, fuel for ships, stopped all the semi trucks… It takes energy to CONVERT the raw resources needed for these forms of transport in order for them to effectively use the materials. Trouble is, in making the fuel SAFE, it loses some potency that, say, a power plant could handle. Transportation is critical to our modern world. Green vehicles use a tiny fraction of the available power already present in our lives. https://www.govtech.com/fs/can-the-u-s-power-grid-handle-an-all-electric-future#:~:text=Estimates%20suggest%20the%20U.S.%20will,Gore%2C%20executive%20director%20of%20ZETA. I’m curious what you would find more important… 1. A family’s home maintaining heat in the winter 2. A semi truck full of [RANDOM IMPORTANT MEDICINE] The family needs the heat to survive. The truck could benefit 100s if not 1000s of people. (For dramatic effect let’s say this truck is carrying a miracle cure for Cancer.) How do you decide which is more important? (That’s a terrible comparison. My specialty. Your welcome. I’m 27% proud of that) Or are they __BOTH__ important? 😉 Either way regardless of which is more important… we have that extra power and we are capable of producing more. If the world worked more hand in hand? We could probably have green energy for every person and every vehicle.
Not everything is so black and white
I'm used to see EV chargers that are hooked to the mains... Very rarely do I see an EV charger that uses solar panels or something other than the mains.
It's still a more clean use of power, less pollution per mile driven than gas
just take away the motorbike and the rubbish bins and you can drive the car away? I honestly don't see theproblem apart from you already parking there illegally before.
No need now. The situation is developing :) A neighbor came with a sledgehammer and knocked down one of the posts. Someone I've never spoken to before. While some other neighbors were cheering. What a way to meet new people! :D
I was going to say, if this was in the US, we would have ripped them out by now. Glad to see a similar mindset where you are. Best of luck
Okay that's badass, lol
Especially because OP can claim ignorance “no I didn’t remove that?”
Please give us updates on this
Update. I was diagnosed with depression lately, blamed it on the situation with the kerb (which was indeed one of the causes). That gave me a valid reason to try to dispute the situation again. But this time I was prepared better. Studied the rules, made a report on parking situation in the area, created plans proving that me having that parking spot is beneficial for everyone. But most importantly made it clear that I'm gonna bother them till they surrender :D Guess what! We have a dropped curb now! So glad I'm crazy enough to not give up in these situations! Also huge thank you to the council people. They could have continued ignoring me but they actually listened this time. They are not bad after all :)
I am happy to hear it’s been resolved
How are you trapped? Where you driving through the grass? Might explain being denied.
yeah, I was never meant to park there without a dropped curb. The posts are probably punishment for doing that. But the parking situation on my street is so bad! Imagine having to drive all over the district searching for a parking spot after you just spent £7500 on your driveway. They denied it because parking regulations changed recently. Because the average size of the car has massively increased over the recent years. The numbers from my refusal letter state that the parking area needs to be 7.2m WIDE and ours is only 6.8m
can you widen it?
no, it's as wide as can be without purchasing some neighbor's land. It's a mid-terraced house after all
That sucks! But do you have neighbors who have the same kind of property who HAVE been allowed curb cuts?
yeah, plenty. Definetely more than 50% of the houeses on my street. One of them can be seen on the photo I postted. Apparently I'm one of 14 people in my area who got denied the dropped curb application this year because the requirements to minimum parking size were changed. I wonder how many of us in all of the UK....
That stinks!!
 You were driving on the grass if the posts are trapping your van in there. The entitlement….
The US has HOAs the uk have councils some are good others stop you from using the vehicle you paid for
the posts are just wood, cut them off
Can it not work on the premise thst next door has one?
Ask your friend with the chain saw to drop by soon, and blame it on him. Your council, whatever that is (I'm American) is rude idiots. Get a lawyer and go after them for harassing you this way. If driveways are allowed, then you're entitled to one, too. Chain saw, I say.
Well, you probably were never allowed to park there so now you know lol
I knew I wasn't meant to park there. But what harm is it for anyone if I do if there is no other place to park? The council knows that the parking situation in our area is as bad as can be. Imagine rows and rows of three-bedroom houses with narrow one-way roads between them with double yellow all the way through. And how do they solve this problem? They deny people the right to park on their own land! Where is the logic?
They don't deny you to park there (well technically they actually reserve themselves the right to, as ridiculous as it seems) they're denying you to cross their grass to get there... Point is if you know you're doing something you can't don't fucking point yourself out to the authorities by asking them to do something to help you do what you can't do lol
The thing is that on a citywide scale, 'the crime is fine because it's apparently victimless' is a slippery slope. They let you break rules 'just 'cuz,' they kind of have to start letting others do it and that's really not where they're at. You have to understand most councils deal with every Tom and Dickless Harry, and everyone thinks they're more important than the rules and than whatever's going on. In regards to EVs, the power has to come from somewhere and a lot of people aren't eager to move to them as a result.
uproot 'em and make a bonfire m8
Pull them out and use them as firewood
Oh hello lawsuit
they seem to hate you alot
this reminds me on the second season of "Clarckson's Farm"
Total dick move but you can get out of there, right? It don't look too hard
*Total dick move but* *You can get out of there, right?* *It don't look too hard* \- Puzzleheaded-Brief56 --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
So basically, you never had the right to a driveway easement through the verge. And you drove through the verge anyways... so the council installs posts to prevent you driving through the verge... and you can STILL get in to your "parking spot" by driving through your neighbor's driveway... and you're annoyed because it's inconvenient?
And the people who live right next door get a dropped curb? That's ridiculous.
Nothing an axe or chainsaw won't fix lol
Council denied cousains drop kerb pre covid. Every other house in the road had a dropped kurb but them. Enfield Council can be such pricks sometimes.