Obstacle to prevent Illegal parking

cepheus

About 2 am last night I was woken up by a loud thud.

I had placed a stone on the outermost part of my lawn to prevent parking on it. Occasionally the tenants in other houses take exception to this, move the stone and simply park on it. This time someone has thrown it on my flags outside my window perhaps as a warning

The part of lawn concerned is a quadrant separated by a walkway and looks superficially like council land. In fact the deeds indicate most of it except the outermost 50cm or so belong to my property and need to be kept in good condition. Obviously the people who park on this are often tenants who don't seem to be interested or understand deeds, and will always argue.

There are a number of options here, but placing a light stone which is the heaviest I can lift (not heavy) as I have at present seems to be the worst option.

I could buy larger flat bottomed stones from a gardening centre and pay someone to install them, but it would mean placing it on the outermost section which is not mine anyway. It also makes it a pain to mow, since I'm trying to keep the garden simple. Should the council be mowing this?

My temptation is to contact the council and get them to install a vertical embedded rod as I've seen elsewhere. This is not attractive but at least it should solve the problem.

Any other suggestions?

GwylimT

Unless the deeds say otherwise you could erect a small fence eg chain link or a small picket on your border. You cannot prevent someone parking on land that you do not own, just to clarify, were you putting the stone on your lawn or the councils lawn?

Davesnave

cepheus wrote: »

My temptation is to contact the council and get them to install a vertical embedded rod as I've seen elsewhere.

Good luck with that.....

Why can't you just install an anti-parking device of some kind on your own property?

The best ones tend not to be rods, but concrete or wooden devices at axle height, embedded in concrete.

Putting something like that in will make mowing marginally harder, but if it's a case of something or nothing, then the choice is obvious.

Somerset

cepheus wrote: »

Any other suggestions?

Yes. I suggest as a libertarian you share what you don't need with your neighbours who apparently do need.

peter_the_piper

Surely you have a graph of the most efficient methods?:j

Joking apart I echo Daves suggestion.

cepheus

Davesnave wrote: »

Good luck with that.....

Why can't you just install an anti-parking device of some kind on your own property?

The best ones tend not to be rods, but concrete or wooden devices at axle height, embedded in concrete.

Putting something like that in will make mowing marginally harder, but if it's a case of something or nothing, then the choice is obvious.

I could just hammer a stake in the middle of the lawn, but it would be neater and less obtrusive at the periphery which is technically their land. This would also prevent parking half on. In practice they never bother to cut it and just assume it's mine.

I'm not that fussed except it would soon become an established parking spot with embedded muddy tyre tracks to suit, and that's going too far even for me.

In fact they could build a small 1 ft high border fence providing it couldn't be dragged out. Unfortunately when people park it's over the whole lawn which is a combination of both, but mostly mine. If a put a border fence round my part the rest will soon become overgrown and a magnet for more of the same. However it's only a foot or two, it's not clear why they did it.

The council probably think it's all mine since they never try to cut it.

Farway

You could try old railway sleepers, or as my local Sainsbury' has done blooming great boulders, crane required I suspect

Davesnave

cepheus wrote: »

I could just hammer a stake in the middle of the lawn, but it would be neater and less obtrusive at the periphery which is technically their land. In practice they never bother to cut it and just assume it's mine.

No. One thing you never do is erect anything on someone else's land without permission, whether it's the council or a private individual. It's not a technicality that it's theirs, though where the boundary lies may be open to some broad interpretation, as a typical line on a title plan is about 0.3m wide.

Put something on land that isn't yours and you have no right to assume it will stay there.

If the council don't cut the grass, that doesn't imply they wouldn't be clear about its ownership if another individual brought it to their close attention.

The grass beyond my roadside boundary belongs to the council, but while it's me who cuts it, if I erected a sign there to advertise my small business, someone would probably question that. The sign is therefore inside my boundary and no one is upset. :A

cepheus

Davesnave wrote: »

No. One thing you never do is erect anything on someone else's land without permission, whether it's the council or a private individual. It's not a technicality that it's theirs, though where the boundary lies may be open to some broad interpretation, as a typical line on a title plan is about 0.3m wide.

Put something on land that isn't yours and you have no right to assume it will stay there.

I agree, could you tell everyone else!

Most of the lawn is my property that's the problem. Please read!

Davesnave

cepheus wrote: »

Most of the lawn is my property that's the problem. Please read!

I'm reasonably proficient at reading, and what I gather here is that you've not created something on the ground to help people distinguish between between public land and your private space.

So, some effort on your part is probably needed, including liaison with the council, to agree a line which can be made plain to others. It's no use assuming what the council thinks or might do. The chances are, with restricted budgets, it won't be much!

If others aren't amenable to gentle psychology, and your 'hint' with the rocks suggests not, then something very tangible, such as I've already suggested, is in order. It'll cost, but then home ownership does.

DaveTheMus

cepheus wrote: »

About 2 am last night I was woken up by a loud thud.

I had placed a stone on the outermost part of my lawn to prevent parking on it. Occasionally the tenants in other houses take exception to this, move the stone and simply park on it. This time someone has thrown it on my flags outside my window perhaps as a warning

The part of lawn concerned is a quadrant separated by a walkway and looks superficially like council land. In fact the deeds indicate most of it except the outermost 50cm or so belong to my property and need to be kept in good condition. Obviously the people who park on this are often tenants who don't seem to be interested or understand deeds, and will always argue.

There are a number of options here, but placing a light stone which is the heaviest I can lift (not heavy) as I have at present seems to be the worst option.

I could buy larger flat bottomed stones from a gardening centre and pay someone to install them, but it would mean placing it on the outermost section which is not mine anyway. It also makes it a pain to mow, since I'm trying to keep the garden simple. Should the council be mowing this?

My temptation is to contact the council and get them to install a vertical embedded rod as I've seen elsewhere. This is not attractive but at least it should solve the problem.

Any other suggestions?

So what you're saying Cepheus is that your neighbours are in need of some land that you don't use and instead of helping you neighbour.....your brother......you want to install some crude device so the land remains unused...

I seem to remember you were very vocal about the Oxford Street Homeless spikes... Or are you more sympathetic to the owners of that land because homeless people where using it for a purpose it was not intended for?

I look forward to your reply