Tom Anderson (Tom Anderson ) gurgled happily,
sounding much like they were saying:

Ever heard of a conservation area or a listed building? They can tell
you what colour to paint your front door.

They told a friend of mine (or her landlady, anyway) that she shouldn't
have double glazing. This seems a case of priorities not being right.

Conservation area? Or Listed Building? If the former (far more likely)
then I'll bet they didn't.

They may very well have told her she couldn't replace her old windows
with tupperware on the front of the building. But that's not the same
thing at all.

In message , at
16:49:22 on Wed, 20 Feb 2008, Tom Anderson
remarked:
Ever heard of a conservation area or a listed building? They can tell
you what colour to paint your front door.

They told a friend of mine (or her landlady, anyway) that she shouldn't
have double glazing. This seems a case of priorities not being right.

They will have been told "no ghastly white plastic UPVC double glazing".
There are plenty of other (more expensive) sorts that can be deployed
without defacing the property.

Normal housing doesn't have such stringent rules, but neither is it a
case of "no rules".

And moreover, in this case, the problem is that get to the private
property, you have to go over public property, the kerb, damaging it in
the process. I couldn't give two hoots about some halfwit parking a car
in their garden,

I do, if it turns a residential street into something resembling a used
car showroom.

but i don't want to be paying to repair damage they cause in doing it.

That as well.
--
Roland Perry

In message
,
Boltar writes
On 19 Feb, 18:27, MIG wrote:
I am wondering what legislation allows street parking anyway. I mean,
you can't store other furniture in the street that you can't fit in

Its called road fund tax. You don't generally find funiture driving
down the road.

The Christmas before last I was doing an evening Ghost Walk in Oxford.

As the group and I crossed over the Oxford Canal, a procession of
motorised office furniture (desks, takes and one filing cabinet) drove
across the bridge, all driven by people dressed as Father Christmas.

And I am being *deadly* serious. The group thought I'd arranged it or
something.
--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

In message
,
Boltar writes
On 19 Feb, 18:21, Adrian wrote:
If to do so would cause an obstruction, yes. Absolutely. You think that's
a bad thing?

No , but in that case they should be allowed to park in their gardens
if they want, dropped kerb or not.

Who's saying that people can't park in their drives? Nobody. This isn't
about whether people can park in their drives or not - but whether they
can park in their front gardens which they'd like to call drives but
haven't actually got vehicular access to.

If its their property they can call it and do with it what they like ,
its none of the councils business so long as they don't cause a public
nuisance or break planning laws.
That latter bit can be very wide ranging, though.

This damage to pavements argument is
a load of old tosh since kerbstones are pretty damn tough and even
with a dropped kerb the car still has to drive over normal paving
anyway potentialy causing exactly the same damage so whats the
difference? Its just another way for petty officials to extort more
cash out of people.
A few years ago a friend of ours moved into a new house in Coventry.
She had space to park on her front garden but no dropped kerb *and*
there was a lamp post in the way.

She enquired about paying for a dropped kerb and paying for the
re-siting of the lamp post and was told that both actions could be
considered, at a price, which she agreed to pay. Then the fun started.

She was told that they would only consider moving the lamp post once
she'd had the kerb dropped (and paid for this). However, they couldn't
guarantee that they'd agree to it until it came up for consideration.
This meant that she risked paying for the drop kerb and then finding
that they wouldn't move the lamp post.

Neither department would move until the other one had done so and a sort
of stalemate ensued. She's a forceful individual, though and
eventually managed to knock heads together (metaphorically, I hasten to
add). But it was stressful that Lamp Post Department and Dropped Kerb
Department couldn't see the Big Picture, so to speak.
--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

In message
,
Boltar writes
Why shouldn't people have a reasonable expectation of being able to
park near where they live? For mothers with kids, people who use their
car or van for work and elderly or partially disabled people its almost
essential.

Because some people's houses are located where it's not safe or
practicable to park.

In an ideal world, we could all park on our property or outside it but
our towns and cities often aren't arranged like that.

There is a reverse issue here of people in residential streets
*thinking* that they somehow "own" the road outside their home. I once
parked in a street with no restrictions only to have a lady come out of
a house and tell me that I couldn't park there because her "husband had
only just gone for petrol" and would be back soon.

She was not impressed at my refusal to move, I can tell you! :-)
--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

In message , Tom
Anderson writes
On Wed, 20 Feb 2008, Roland Perry wrote:

In message
,
at 03:27:55 on Wed, 20 Feb 2008, Boltar
remarked:
No , but in that case they should be allowed to park in their gardens if
they want, dropped kerb or not.
Why?
Because its their bloody property! You going to start dictating
what
plants they can plant in their gardens next or perhaps what type of
furniture they're allowed to buy??

Ever heard of a conservation area or a listed building? They can tell
you what colour to paint your front door.

They told a friend of mine (or her landlady, anyway) that she shouldn't
have double glazing. This seems a case of priorities not being right.
Are you sure they said "no double glazing", as opposed to no seal unit
UPVC double glazing? Conservation rules are often much more flexible
than people think. It's just that in order to maintain appearance
(usually termed "character", special steps usually have to be taken.
In most Conservation Areas (all as far as I'm aware) secondary double
glazing would be fine but this is much more expensive that the wares
peddled by Safestyle et al.
--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

On Wed, 20 Feb 2008, J. Chisholm wrote:

Where I used to live some idiot insisted on parking his (almost)HGV on
the footway. Apart from the damage and difficulty in getting past with
prams/pushchair etc, the water main beneath the path eventually failed.

Now if only it were worth suing such idiots.

Why isn't it? If the damage is worth less than 5000 UKP (which seems
likely), the council could do it via the small claims process. That's
simple and quick, and the court can't award costs, so even if the council
loses, it doesn't cost them anything other than the wasted time. Being a
large organisation who would be launching these cases quite often, they
could run the operation very cheaply, and pretty solidly, so they should
do well at it.

tom

--
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. -- Alan Kay

On Wed, 20 Feb 2008, Mizter T wrote:

On 20 Feb, 15:42, (Sn!pe) wrote:
MIG wrote:
Crossposted to uk.rec.sheds.

For some reason I read that as "Composted ...".

By all accounts, two-year-old compost is wonderfully friable.


I think we at utl should crosspost to uk.rec.sheds more often!

Don't know about that; between you and me, they're a funny lot.

After all, the major London termini station buildings are referred to as
trainsheds...

Not terribly recreational, though.

tom

--
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. -- Alan Kay

On Wed, 20 Feb 2008, Ian Jelf wrote:

In message
, Boltar
writes
On 19 Feb, 18:27, MIG wrote:
I am wondering what legislation allows street parking anyway. I mean,
you can't store other furniture in the street that you can't fit in

Its called road fund tax. You don't generally find funiture driving
down the road.

The Christmas before last I was doing an evening Ghost Walk in Oxford.

As the group and I crossed over the Oxford Canal, a procession of motorised
office furniture (desks, takes and one filing cabinet)

'takes'?

drove across the bridge, all driven by people dressed as Father
Christmas.

File under 'normal for Oxford'.

tom

--
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. -- Alan Kay

On Wed, 20 Feb 2008, Adrian wrote:

Tom Anderson (Tom Anderson ) gurgled happily,
sounding much like they were saying:

Ever heard of a conservation area or a listed building? They can tell
you what colour to paint your front door.

They told a friend of mine (or her landlady, anyway) that she shouldn't
have double glazing. This seems a case of priorities not being right.

Conservation area? Or Listed Building? If the former (far more likely)
then I'll bet they didn't.

They may very well have told her she couldn't replace her old windows
with tupperware on the front of the building. But that's not the same
thing at all.

I wondered that too. I asked her, but i think i was distracted by her new
fridge when she answered. It's probably a case of her landlady saying no
because she doesn't want to splash out on fancy double glazing. I tried to
convince her she should pursue it, since se's just throwing away money,
but she wasn't very enthusiastic. I think she quite likes having a cold
house!

tom

--
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. -- Alan Kay