It’s a parking one…

[MegsLevante]

Builders have blocked off 6 free parking areas on our road with bollards. This is a public road and those spaces are used by the residents because not everyone has a drive.

There has been a derelict house on the road for ages. One of the parking spaces is in front of this house but the other 5 aren’t. The house has been sold recently (no idea who to) and they have builders in. These builders have put bollards (last week) and now traffic lights on to block off these spaces.

They have also left these bollards and traffic lights in place over the weekend when they aren’t doing any work.

Are they allowed to do this on a public road? If they’ve got traffic lights, have they got the council involved, or can anyone put up traffic lights? Who do we complain to?

If they’ve got temporary traffic lights, it’s unlikely to be residential builders. More likely utilities or highways work.

Ok, thanks. There is now a hole in the ground in front of the house.

Last week however, it was just bollards and they seemed to be using them to block the spaces so that they could park their vans in during the day.

Traffic lights would indicate that it's service works, and they'll have a permit from the council to have the traffic lights up for a certain amount of time. I always use this website to check how long any disruptive works will be around for 🙂 one.network/

Maybe they wanted to prevent people parking where they were going to dig?

For a whole week before they started digging? The hole only appeared on Friday. They had blocked the spaces off from the Friday before (including the weekend). It’s causing a lot of disruption for the other residents. Whoever is moving in has already pissed off their new neighbours.

Thank you. That’s useful.

Are you quite sure that the roadworks have anything to do with the house at all? You seem to be conflating two separate things. Even if it’s utility work specifically for the house, it’s hardly the fault of the owner.

Also, like it or not, when roadworks are happening, the contractors need space for their equipment and the pile of dirt that comes from the hole they dig.

No-one on here knows why they blocked spaces for a weeks before starting work. Have you tried asking the workmen?

Also, regardless of whether these works are for that house or not, there clearly will be significant building work happening before too long if a large derelict house has changed hands. That's a pain in the arse in an area with limited parking, but it will pass and it's the new owner's right to renovate their house. Just like it would be your right to renovate your house. It'll be annoying but you kind of just have to suck it up as one of those things.

It looks like they have permission to block the road from 24th to 28th March due to gas works (hence hole appearing in road on Friday 24th March). I’ll let the other neighbours know this.

There is nothing to say they’ve had permission to block the road from Friday 17th March to Thursday 23rd March and prevent other residents from parking on the road. These six spaces are on a public road and I don’t see how anyone has the right to block them off for their own personal use. If the blocking continues from 29th March onwards (after the gas works have finished) then we’ll take photos, complain to the council and then move the bollards.

It isn’t the new owners right to block off a road though. Only 1 of the 6 spaces is in front of their house. The other 5 are in front of other peoples houses. We weren’t told in advance that this would be happening. You seem to be implying that the new owners have more rights than the existing residents.

If it's a public road, there is no distinction between the spot in front of your house and the spot in front of their house - none of you own any of them.

They shouldn't be blocking any off but in reality they will need to occasionally otherwise the whole road will be blocked for deliveries.

At this stage if you want to do anything, I'd drop a polite note through the door asking the new owners to ask their builders to be respectful of the neighbours and not take up parking unnecessarily. Going straight to reporting them is not going to be good for neighbourly relations - and will mean you have zero wiggle room yourself if you get building work done down the line.

Seems to me you have gas works going on on your road.

Separately, a house on your road has just been sold and new neighbours have moved in.

I'm not sure why you're so insistent there is a link between the two things?

Based on the information on the website another poster provided, a gas contractor has permission to block the road from Friday 24th to Tuesday 28th March, due to gas works.

I can’t see any permission for the builders to put bollards out and prevent other residents parking outside their own homes from Friday 17th March to Thursday 23rd March (including Saturday 18th March and Sunday 19th March when they weren’t even there doing any work) and from Wednesday 29th March onwards.

Note - the house being renovated is a 2 bed terrace and only one of the six parking spaces is outside their house. The other five are outside other people’s houses. It’s a public road, so the six parking spaces don’t belong to anyone. Anyone should be able to park in them and I think these builders blocking other residents from parking there is unreasonable (particularly over a weekend).

Can you just speak to the fellows there doing the work and find out whether they can accommodate your parking a little when they are not there? It might be safe or not?

Erm because the website shows that our county council has provided permission for a gas contractor to work on the supply to this house from Friday 24th March to Tuesday 28th March.

I get that it's frustrating but don't blame your new neighbours.
If specific work needs to be done that involves gas, electricity or water it is largely out of their hands as to when it gets done.

It won't be forever

Things need to be set up before the actual work starts and often the team that sets up the traffic control equipment isn't the same team that does the actual work. There's the potential they also needed to block it off for some survey visits before they dug the huge hole in!

While there's no way of knowing for certain, the gas works probably are for the house if it's truly derelict. We've been the people who bought a house like that and we had to do something similar for gas, electrics and water, which I know was disruptive for the neighbours. On days the parking was restricted we did have proper suspension signage as much as possible, but sometimes the services don't match up properly or only give you a date range - i.e. if both British Gas and Cadent are needed, sometimes you only get told British Gas will be there on a certain day, but Cadent has a 3 day window. In those cases our site manager went and spoke to the neighbours to let them know what was happening.

I'm surprised the new owners haven't at least sent a note around with their apologies and contact details. I know it's not fun living near that kind of disruption, but hopefully it will be worth it in the end to have gotten rid of a derelict property on the road.

You don’t think that the new owners should have dropped a polite note through all our doors, advising us that there would be disruption? And letting us know how long it would be for? The house in question has been derelict for years. No one is living in it, so I’m not sure that a polite note through the door would even get to the new owners.

I get that there is permission in place from the council for a contractor to block off the road from 24 - 28 March as they need to alter the gas supply to the house and this involves digging a hole in the public road at the front of the house. This is fine as they have permission from the council to do this.

What isn’t fine is the builders have decided that the 6 spaces on a public road are there for their own personal parking and are blocking these spaces with bollards even over a weekend when they aren’t there doing any work. This could go on for ages, the house is a shell, it’s been empty for years.

If it's utilities you will sadly find it's tough luck. I had no access at all to a property I manage for a month (single track lane), & not a thing I could do. Believe me I tried. Permits get extended too

It isn’t just me. We have a WhatsApp group for everyone who lives on the road and everyone is pissed off about this.

Ive shared the website another poster provided to the group, so everyone can now see that a gas contractor has permission to block the road from 24-28th March but no longer.

Where do people park if not using one of these six spaces? Builders need to be parked near to their work site so they can access their work vans and get equipment throughout the day. Blocking spaces over weekends is annoying admittedly but maybe they're worried the spaces won't be available on the Monday. I agree a polite note through neighbours doors would have helped, but maybe the new owners are oblivious to what's happening with parking. That's assuming the house has been purchased by an individual. Maybe it's been bought up by a developer, or will be buy-to-let.

I get this is annoying and frustrating but I hope the neighbours are mature enough to not hate on these new neighbours when they move in.

You’re not listening to what people are telling you though. Connection of gas, electric, water etc are statutory duties. The new owner will have had nothing to do with booking the timeslot for the roadworks. You need to get angry with British Gas or whoever for not notifying you.

Also do you mean traffic cones? Bollards to my mind are something very different it would be v unusual to see them installed.

The utilities permit is from 24th to 28th March. The builders put bollards out from Friday 17th March and left them there over the weekend. On Monday 20th March they had moved the bollards to park their vans there. And continued doing this until Thursday 23rd March.

Ill keep an eye on the website and see if the permit for gas works is extended. as long as there is a council permit in place, I accept there is nothing we can do. But they shouldn’t be blocking 6 parking spaces for their own personal use during periods when there is no council permit in place.

You're dead set on it being your new neighbour so why post? Like others have said, it's much more likely to be public authority based than private, but you're not interested.

I hope for your new neighbour's sake that you're not this rude to them in real life