Council removed our road worthy/legal car from our car park.

Idiophreak

tinkerbell84 wrote: »

It clearly meets 2 conditions which could make it 'abandoned'.

Yeah, *could* - not *does*.

I can't believe you're even bothering to try arguing the other side of this one - I'm all for healthy debate, but removing a car in these circumstances without even attempting to contact the owner - it's not just odd, it's indefensible.

Anyway, good luck OP - hope you take the council to the cleaners on this one

Mark_Hewitt

And since when is parking for several months illegal? e.g. I'm going to start getting the train to work instead of driving. So my car will likely be only for holidays etc. It might stay in one place for over a month. Does that make it 'abandoned'?!

BTW. I'd suggest getting in touch with as many media outlets as possible. For example, BBC local news, BBC local radio, ALL the local newspapers, local commercial radio, watchdog, etc etc.

tinkerbell84

Idiophreak wrote: »

I can't believe you're even bothering to try arguing the other side of this one

(sigh)

I wasn't. I was trying to get people to understand why someone might have thought the car had been abandoned :rolleyes:

Idiophreak wrote: »

- I'm all for healthy debate, but removing a car in these circumstances without even attempting to contact the owner - it's not just odd, it's indefensible.

I completely agree (as I have done several times on this thread) :rolleyes:

nickismee

Thank you for your input Mark.

We are going to try and resolve this with the council first. If nothing comes of that, we have a lovely solicitor who has already helped us with the letter we need to send, and she is willing to take this on.

We need to be seen as trying to resolve this ourselves first before we go to the next step, eg.. tv, papers, radio. Part of me wants this to go to court, not for the money, but to make an example out of our council, that councils cannot keep treating the people who pay their salary's like this.

Neil_B

Ah - so now they are quoting the Refuse and Amenities Act i mentioned and not the newer one????

Note they cite a 'report' as I also thought - same as happened to me.

They will likely refuse to give details of that but you should point out to them that they will be required to do so in Court.

They must justify acting on such information IMO - just common sense. How could they know if such a report was not malicious? - and what steps did they take to ensure it wasn't?
-

tinkerbell84

nickismee wrote: »

to make an example out of our council, that councils cannot keep treating the people who pay their salary's like this.

Thanked by mistake.

I wouldn't advise you use this line in any communication with the council.

Mandark

I would address the letter of complaint to the corporate complaints officer for the council. Unlike letters sent to individual sections and/or departments where you can be fobbed off with a poor response, official complaints are always taken seriously and monitored centrally. You also have a 'neutral' complaints officer hassling the relevant officers to explain their actions in full.

Of course not all complaints are accepted as 'official' complaints and sometimes people get asked to just contact the relevant department and get back to the complaints officer if there's still a problem. But I think you have a good case with this fiasco.

nickismee

tinkerbell84 wrote: »

Thanked by mistake.

I wouldn't advise you use this line in any communication with the council.

I wasn't planning to, lol

Mark_Hewitt

nickismee wrote: »

We need to be seen as trying to resolve this ourselves first before we go to the next step, eg.. tv, papers, radio. Part of me wants this to go to court, not for the money, but to make an example out of our council, that councils cannot keep treating the people who pay their salary's like this.

I think it's worth contacting the papers now really. At the moment they are just ignoring you by the looks of it. It's amazing what a prod from a media organisation can do to focus their attention.

Neil_B

tinkerbell84 wrote: »

I wouldn't advise you use this line in any communication with the council.

Why not? the bolded part is in Statute somewhere isn't it - i.e. their responsibilities to us that they always seem to forget.

That and the fact that 90% of the Country would agree wuth such a statement IMO