On not being arrested

Our neighbour at number 1, Roy, has been in dispute with the council for about 2 years over the position of some trees he planted. For those of you who have never been to this particular hotbed of crime see the photograph below.




This shows the view from a side road across a piece of open ground to a boundary wall that encloses gardens for numbers 1 to 4 Tithe Barn. The offending trees were in a line from the telegraph poles to the edge of the wall just to the left of the white car. These, along with a Russian vine and lavender plants (these spread from the telegraph pole towards the silver coloured tree) were deemed to be blocking the view of any driver coming out of the side road (about where I took the photograph from) and turning left. Roy had planted up the area to try to stop dogs using it as a convenient toilet.

The dispute started with the council claiming they owned that patch of ground. Roy's deeds that came when he purchased the house show that part as being part of the property so he challenged the council over the ownership. They told him that his deeds were out of date so he requested an up to date copy and queried the land registry. Nothing was forthcoming until the council demanded again that he remove the trees. This time they claimed that they owned the top soil and he owned the subsoil, about 30cms down. Again Roy asked for the documentary proof that they owned the top part and again there was no evidence provided.

The council then threatened to take him to court so he called their bluff and agreed to go to court at which point they backed down and suggested arbitration. The problem with this was that they would appoint the arbitrator and Roy had to stump up £250 (non-returnable) and he could be liable for costs if he lost. His counter proposal of a truly independent arbitrator or even someone from the parish council were rejected.

The council wrote more threatening letters so Roy asked for the regulations that defined why the trees and lavender were a problem. Amazingly these were sent along with the council's calculations. The line of site from a point at the centre of the side road, 4.5m back form the junction should extend out to 55m along the road (I may have misremembered this figure). There must be no obstruction to the view from 2 feet above the ground and 6 feet. He checked heir calculations (he's a maths graduate and lectured in the subject) and found that whoever did the calculations for the council must be accomplished in the new syllabus mathematics because they got it wrong. He duly corrected the calculations and sent them back. These were rejected. He then showed that using the guidelines correctly that the trees were not causing a problem but that the boundary wall was the limiting obstruction and that the telegraph pole was a major obstacle. His suggestion that they move the telegraph pole fell on deaf ears. Roy checked just about every side turning within the village and none of them meet this requirement.

Eventually the council wrote to him and said that they were removing the trees anyway and that it would happen on November 2nd.

So today a workman turned up in a 4x4 and a woman from the council arrived in a car. Roy had made a token protest by parking his two cars on the road adjacent to the disputed trees  - the red Rover in the photo is his - and he had put all his plastic garden chairs over the lavender and weighed them down with rocks. So the scene was set for a confrontation.

The workman started removing the trees using a spade and a mattock and the council woman tried to fend off the complaints but because there were too many people taking an interest she called the police. They turned up and questioned the various parties and calmed things down. It was only when they were hear that the new reason for he lavender having to go was given to us - it was now a trip hazard. Few parts of the plants had been over 2 feet high anyway. Meanwhile two other council employees turned up in separate vehicles.

In the end the police wandered off and the plant removals finished. The council have been generous however in that they have wrapped each tree's root ball up in damp rags so that they can be replanted. All lavender bushes have been placed to one side so that they can be replanted. Remember I mentioned a mattock? Each tree was taken up by being prised out of the ground so the root system remaining is pretty minimal and hey aren't likely to survive.



This view is from slightly further out  and the carefully wrapped plants are just to the left of the silver tree. So it's cost the council 2 years of correspondence, 1 grunt, 1 jobsworth and 2 others, which we reckon amounts to something over £2000. Roy said that if they'd offered him £200 cash he'd have done it for them ages ago.

Words meme

Rules:

Reply to this meme by yelling 'WORDS!', and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your journal and explain what they mean to you. Keep in mind that if I don't know you that well, your words might end up kind of esoteric/oblique. You'll only get given five words if you do include 'WORDS!' in a reply to this post, meaning you can safely comment (should you wish to do so) without having to play.

Words from sally_maria

Beer
Me? Beer? OK, I'll admit to being partial to a drop or two[1]. Cask conditioned, bottle conditioned or even a proper lager. To be drunk in a pleasant location, like this:



Tolkien
I blame an English teacher way back when who read parts of the Hobbit to us in class and I thought "At last, something that isn't turgid". We did World War 1 poetry for O-level, need I say more? Suddenly getting something fantastical to study actually got me interested in English Literature lessons. Maybe I was being too harsh on WW1, poets at 12 or 13 years old they belonged to a distant timeline that was dark and depressing. Knowing a lot more about the conflict now, I can understand the tone of the writing. Some of my grandparents would discuss what they did in the war some I found out about from other relatives (Great Uncle Harold shot in the foot just before being courtmartialed [2], grandfather suffered from a gas attack and never recovered [3], t'other Great Uncle Harold came home on leave twice infested with lice [4], t'other grandfather went to Ireland...[5]). I've always described JRRT's writing as being akin to a painting by numbers kit. He's provided the framework but it's up to my imagination to fill in the colours, that's why the films only scored an OK with me.

Pets
It started with a budgie, Chippy. He was found asleep on the garage roof of my parents first house. Obviously an escapee, mum grabbed him and put him inside the house.When she was at the newsagents she saw a missing budgie notice and rang up. The people came over with a cage to collect him, said he wasn't theirs and gave us the cage and all the bits.

Goldfish. I can remember very little about these apart from the fact that one managed to jump out of the bowl and survived for a long time before it was found. I think that it lived for a few years after.

Two white mice. One of my brother's classmates had a pet mouse population explosion and was giving the young away. So we got one each. Within a few days one mouse had killed and half-eaten the other. It wasn't a great success.

The 3 hour tortoise. It arrived in the garden from somewhere else and we found it marching across the lawn. Dad was pestered into making a wire mesh enclosure so that we could keep it. By the time we had finished lunch it had climbed the mesh and escaped.

Cats. Both parents and brother watched birds so I had to borrow other people's cats. It culminated in us taking Melchett on a permanent basis when his previous slaves moved house. He didn't like children and got depressed when they moved to this place. When he discovered us and the fact that we would take his side in arguments with the evil Percy (see below) he got much happier. Today he's so unstressed that he's had to sleep in a chair all day.



Books
There have been books around all my life. There are my original Beatrix Potter's and Thomas The Tank Engine books on a shelf back at mum's. apademek is the great collector, I have always been able to dispose of books (ethically, such as to charity shops) if I thought they weren't any good. We now have books on all sorts of subjects, you'd need to visit to see for yourself.

Egypt
This, along with The Sudan, is apademek 's favourite area of study. Admittedly I find the history fascinating too. I have been to Egypt six times now and have yet to get into the Great Pyramid [6] and I haven't been to the Valley Of The Kings [7].


[1] Maybe a bucket or two.
[2] He been pushed forward to an observation foxhole and spent the time making a fire to warm a can of beans instead of looking at what the enemy were up to. A forward spying position with a nice plume of smoke coming up out of it would tend to be a bit of a giveaway.
[3] He died in 1941 from pulmonary problems. It probably didn't help in that he smoked like a chimney.
[4] He also brought back a German revolver and a hand grenade as souvenirs. These proved troublesome to get rid of after he died.
[5] I have no idea why Grandad went to Ireland.
[6] Tried twice, closed for filming and/or restoration once and closed for lunch the second time.
[7] I've been to too many other places and have yet to fit it in.