Untidy back yard - private house, what can coucil do?

maninthestreet

Since when did the police get involved with untidy gardens? The police have no powers to force you to tidy up your garden, but the council do.
Can you upload a recent picture of you garden?

muckybutt

Oh yes the Council can MAKE you tidy your garden whether it is visible from the road or not !

We had an extension done last year which left a lot of mess in our back garden, our "lovely new" neighbors complained to the council and we had a visit from their enforcement officer, they were ok with it and didn't see it as a nusance, noticed we had bait boxes about etc but did say they required it to look tidier, he served us notice to get the rubbish and garden tidied asked us how long we wanted so we said within 6 weeks, if we didn't conform to the notice they would start legal proceedings under the Town and Country Planning act.

Said section from act - 215 Power to require proper maintenance of land.

(1)If it appears to the local planning authority that the amenity of a part of their area, or of an adjoining area, is adversely affected by the condition of land in their area, they may serve on the owner and occupier of the land a notice under this section.
(2)The notice shall require such steps for remedying the condition of the land as may be specified in the notice to be taken within such period as may be so specified.
(3)Subject to the following provisions of this Chapter, the notice shall take effect at the end of such period as may be specified in the notice.
(4)That period shall not be less than 28 days after the service of the notice.

If you don't comply with their notice then you can be fined upto £1000 and also be pursued for costs of removal of the rubbish from the council.

moneyistooshorttomention

Seconded that it would be useful to see what the exact state of play with the garden is with a photo of it. One mans definition of untidy might be another mans definition of pin-neat on the one hand or "right old tip" on the other hand.

I would think Councils are pretty reasonable overall. Goodness knows I can think instantly of one garden round here that the Council clearly needs to take action about and no evidence that they are doing so. That, of course, helps to explain why my own nfh got no further than them taking a quick visual check of my garden that I wasn't supposed to know about (but I found out;)) as part of a sustained campaign they ran to try and "persuade" me I might like to sell up and leave. Though my own garden wasn't untidy - it was just not "pin neat" obviously on a temporary basis only, for the very good reason I was gutting my house.