Public car park being used as vehicle workshop

Clockwork145

Hello MSE,

Not sure if this is the right forum but looking for some advice/guidance.

We moved into our new hours 4 years ago, which is in a close with a large public area for parking by all the residents (no private driveways - no bays & all unmarked). Over the last two years, one of the neighbours has basically turned this area into his private vehicle workshop. This has become a significant nuisance to us as the noise is awful, let alone the environmental concerns/safety, as well as the general inconvenience from cars blocking the road.

• A new car can arrive at any day of the week (Mon-Sun) at at any time - right up until 11PM! I have witnessed cars arrive on flatbed trucks at 10:00PM at night, with the engine running through to 11PM while it is manually offloaded and manouvered into position.
  
• The maintenace can be minor (a few hours to change oil or replace a tyre), medium (several hours while the engine is left running or revving over and over), or extreme - we have seen an entire engine removed from a car and dumped by some bins!
  
• Sometimes its just the one individual, sometimes he has 1-2 people helping, other times its a crowd of 5-6 helping/witnessing.
• All these cars have obnoxiously loud engines, so not only is the noise bad enough during the actual work, but it is also irritating while the engine is being tested by driving around the close over and over. The noise is clearly audible through our house with all doors and windows closed.
  
• On some occasions there's multiple cars being worked on at any one time. I assume one car is compelte and waiting for a sale/owner to pick up.
• On occasion, the cars are "hidden" - blocked in by other cars owned by the individual or his accomplaices so that the registration is not visible.
• There are patches where oil has spilled onto the street.
  

To be clear, this is NOT someone doing up their own car. If it was this would be something different. This is a constant stream of different cars being turned around.

It got so bad that in June during the heatwave I went out and asked them to stop as it was 10:45 and everyone had their windows open due to the heat. I was told they can make as much noise as they like until 11!

We have spoken to the Council, but although they came out to have a look they said they couldn't take any action. We have also spoken to the house association but they have been pretty useless also. We have even tried reporting to the police as abandoned/uninsured vehicles.

Any MSErs have an inclining what's going on here? At first I thought it was just someone during their friends a few favours, but as the scale of the operation has increased (such as removing engines!) it seems to us that there's something more going on here.

Is there any further action we can take? As you can see from above it is so inconsistent that it makes it difficult to action/report, but the noise is really driving us mad and we live in constant apprehension that another car is going to arrive.

Thanks

MovingForwards

Do you own or rent?
Does the neighbour own or rent?

If owned, have you checked the title deeds to see if there's any restriction to running a business?

If rented, is it council, housing association, private?

jon81uk

Who is the car park owned by? Do the deeds just state you have a share, or is there a management company who own the public areas?

Clockwork145

jon81uk said:

Who is the car park owned by? Do the deeds just state you have a share, or is there a management company who own the public areas?

MovingForwards said:

Do you own or rent?
Does the neighbour own or rent?

If owned, have you checked the title deeds to see if there's any restriction to running a business?

If rented, is it council, housing association, private?

We own and believe they are housing association. When we purchased the property our contract had restrictions that no vehicle maintenance could be performed in this area. 
Housing association owns the car park.

molerat

You need to find the general conditions applied to HA tenants, which is likely to be very much the same as yours, and lodge a formal complaint with them which can then be taken up to the housing ombudsman if they fail to enforce their own rules.  https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/council_housing_association/complaints_about_housing_associations

jon81uk

Clockwork145 said:

jon81uk said:

Who is the car park owned by? Do the deeds just state you have a share, or is there a management company who own the public areas?

MovingForwards said:

Do you own or rent?
Does the neighbour own or rent?

If owned, have you checked the title deeds to see if there's any restriction to running a business?

If rented, is it council, housing association, private?

We own and believe they are housing association. When we purchased the property our contract had restrictions that no vehicle maintenance could be performed in this area. 
Housing association owns the car park.

If the housing association own the car park then you need to make it their problem.

lincroft1710

Have you checked with the planning authority about the legality of repairing vehicles in an area not so designated or Environmental Health.

Barny1979

Flag this to Housing Association and to Planning Authority for operating a Business from a residential property.

missile

You might want to seek assistance from your local councillor?

[Deleted User]

I'd suggest taking date and time stamped pictures and sending them to the HA, preferably identifying the resident doing the works.  You need to establish that regular repairs are happening and who is doing these repairs.

Clockwork145

Barny1979 said:

Flag this to Housing Association and to Planning Authority for operating a Business from a residential property.

lincroft1710 said:

Have you checked with the planning authority about the legality of repairing vehicles in an area not so designated or Environmental Health.

Yes we tried that but he fobbed them off with some story about doing a favour for friends, and that he wasn’t doing any more because of worsening back issues. That was maybe a year ago.
Also as the business wasn’t technically taking place in the property itself their hands were a little tied.

deannatrois said:

I'd suggest taking date and time stamped pictures and sending them to the HA, preferably identifying the resident doing the works.  You need to establish that regular repairs are happening and who is doing these repairs.

Fortunately I’ve been doing this for the past year or so, though we’ll be much stricter about it from now on. HA have just been on the phone asking us to do just that (and seem to be taking it much more seriously now too). They are resuming their case and picking it up again with local council enforcement (I got the impression things had been on hold due to COVID).

Latest development in the drama is that we’ve been informed that the individual in question doesn’t even live here! Seems that they are just in a relationship with a tenant.