Driveway being used as neighbourhood play area

[Chafl]

I've just moved onto a new build estate, where most of the houses are off to the left or right of the main street, with neighbours sharing a narrow drive / access path (no pavement), which is unadopted by the council and for access only, not parking (don't have the deeds yet, but been referred to as this by the sales team).

Ours steps uphill and joins what is going to be a green area, when finished, and since the sun has come out, has attracted just about every child on the estate with their bikes, scooters, roller blades, skateboards..

I'm not just talking about neighbours' children playing in front of their own property next door, which I need to pass over to get home, (I am in the middle house) but loads of them constantly whizzing up and down outside, congregating and making it difficult to come and go.

The number of them means they encourage each other to keep going and won't move when you try to leave the driveway, so a quiet word with one won't really work.

I don't know any of their parents yet, and don't really want to get off on the wrong foot - be that upsetting them by asking them to leave, or allowing it to happen.

AIBU to think that it's only 'shared' for the actual residents and is actually our 'shared' private property, or should I (and the neighbourhood kids) be treating this like a public space?

I still don't get what people are struggling with. It's not an unusual set up. I grew up in a house with a shared drive with 2 other houses just like this. This was 30 years ago that we moved in. My parents then moved into another house with a similar set up which was a disaster.

OP, the kids should not be on your shared drive. I find it odd that as all the other properties have a similar set up that their parents are allowing it. I think you're going to have to deliberately go out in your car and keep reminding the kids that this is your drive. Most kids will stop once being told.

Someone asked further up if you're on a slight hill that is making the kids want you use your drive more than their own? I don't buy the fact there isn't a sign up yet as a reason they are picking your patch! If that's the reason, get the estate manager to put a sign up asap. I have most of the street playing in my front garden and back garden all summer. But that's because my kids have invited them. It would drive me mad if they just all turned up daily!

Oh and an access road wouldn't have a dropped kerb. It would be part of the road. It's a drive.

Get a water gun

From the lookout of the grass area being overshadowed by houses on both sides, not to mention kids on it, the grass will be scrubby and unsightly very quickly, best get the bushes in PDQ

Op is there anywhere else safe for the kids?

Children have so little freedom to play on their own doorstep nowadays. Can't you tolerate this and enjoy seeing them out on rollerskatess in the sunshine?

Cul de sacs offer rare safe space for children to play close to home. Mostly cars have destroyed that very normal freedom

I would love our street to be safe enough that kids could okay outside. It fosters resilience and friendship and makes for good community. It means the children are outside not watching TV ie waiting for an adult to have time to take them somewhere.

The fact is kids are in school a lot and the weather is shit a lot. They won't be out there as much as you think. Maybe get to know the children?

I’m so Confused. Is this a drive? Can you drive along it? Where do you park? Why are the children not allowed to play on the grass? Where is there available for them to play?

This is why I would never live in another estate or cul de sac, the parking and the groups of kids.

@Goldieloxx

This is why I would never live in another estate or cul de sac, the parking and the groups of kids.

Neither would I. Children can go to a park and they can play in their back gardens, mine always did that as did I as a child, never allowed to play in the street but nobody did.

"Children can play in back gardens" - surely you can see the huge benefits of groups of children being able to freely use the space on their own doorsteps? Not everyone has a garden, or parents with time to take them to the park - doorstep play was normal for generations - and cars have made it sadly less safe.

Doorstep play allows children freedom while parents are nearby - but parents are able to get on with normal home life - 'taking kids to the park' is not always possible, children in groups might not have space in a garden - don't we want kids outside rather than in watching tv??

Isn't a community with children roller skating and chatting and chalking a nice positive community?

I don't understand why parked cars are preferable to children playing - the 'norm' is children using space near their homes, it's just become less common to see in the past 20/30 years

@RogueMNerKnowsNoShame

Are they using chalk?

@Wondergirl100

"Children can play in back gardens" - surely you can see the huge benefits of groups of children being able to freely use the space on their own doorsteps? Not everyone has a garden, or parents with time to take them to the park - doorstep play was normal for generations - and cars have made it sadly less safe.

Doorstep play allows children freedom while parents are nearby - but parents are able to get on with normal home life - 'taking kids to the park' is not always possible, children in groups might not have space in a garden - don't we want kids outside rather than in watching tv??

Isn't a community with children roller skating and chatting and chalking a nice positive community?

I don't understand why parked cars are preferable to children playing - the 'norm' is children using space near their homes, it's just become less common to see in the past 20/30 years

Totally agree, it is a societal good as well as good for the individual children. But sadly, people seem to increasingly interpret 'social good' as only that which is good for them.

From what OP has said, the access road/driveway only leads to the 3 houses, there’s nothing beyond the third house. (Is this correct OP?)

So they could in theory block off access to anyone other than the 3 householders.

Where are people getting the idea that the access road leads anywhere else?

@GreenWillow

From what OP has said, the access road/driveway only leads to the 3 houses, there’s nothing beyond the third house. (Is this correct OP?)

So they could in theory block off access to anyone other than the 3 householders.

Where are people getting the idea that the access road leads anywhere else?

I think because OP described it as leading to a green space in her first post, although she’s later clarified that the green space won’t be for playing on either.

@Wondergirl100

"Children can play in back gardens" - surely you can see the huge benefits of groups of children being able to freely use the space on their own doorsteps? Not everyone has a garden, or parents with time to take them to the park - doorstep play was normal for generations - and cars have made it sadly less safe.

Doorstep play allows children freedom while parents are nearby - but parents are able to get on with normal home life - 'taking kids to the park' is not always possible, children in groups might not have space in a garden - don't we want kids outside rather than in watching tv??

Isn't a community with children roller skating and chatting and chalking a nice positive community?

I don't understand why parked cars are preferable to children playing - the 'norm' is children using space near their homes, it's just become less common to see in the past 20/30 years

Yes!

@Wondergirl100

"Children can play in back gardens" - surely you can see the huge benefits of groups of children being able to freely use the space on their own doorsteps? Not everyone has a garden, or parents with time to take them to the park - doorstep play was normal for generations - and cars have made it sadly less safe.

Doorstep play allows children freedom while parents are nearby - but parents are able to get on with normal home life - 'taking kids to the park' is not always possible, children in groups might not have space in a garden - don't we want kids outside rather than in watching tv??

Isn't a community with children roller skating and chatting and chalking a nice positive community?

I don't understand why parked cars are preferable to children playing - the 'norm' is children using space near their homes, it's just become less common to see in the past 20/30 years

This. There’s so much handwringing about obesity and kids on screens on these boards but also five million threads a year about what a pain in the arse it is to be able to hear children playing outside.

Do any of these children live in the houses either side of you? If so then they are allowed to play there with their friends surely? If none of them live in either house I don't know why they would go there to play when they would have their own drive to play on.

I think you are being unreasonable though if the children from next door are just playing out with their friends, if they are just some random kids from god knows where then I would speak to your neighbours and see how they feel about it.

Look up your house on the Land Registry and see where the boundaries are on the plan.

www.gov.uk/search-property-information-land-registry

Why your house and no one else’s? This would piss me right off.

@skeggycaggy

Is it just me who thinks this estate sounds poorly designed? Is this a standard set up? Miserable for kids when I would have thought being on a new build estate could have had loads of potential for play & community built in to it.

Sounds like a bloody horrible place to live. Poor kids. I can’t believe you’re not allowed on the grass!

....children being able to freely use the space on their own doorsteps

But they're not on their own doorsteps! They're on op's doorstep!

If the whole estate has a similar layout, why aren't they playing on their own shared driveways?

This is exactly why I would never buy a house with a shared driveway, or next to a communal potential play space.

Nag the developers for a keep off sign. Either all of the green spaces should have one, or none of them. Not fair for yours to be the only space used by the local kids.

We have the exact same layout on our new-build (2017) street. It is an access road, not private property. Each leaseholder ("homeowner") is responsible for the upkeep of the bit of tarmac in front of their property - but does not own it. Ownership rests with the freeholder.

Out of the eight houses serviced by our access road there are six pre-school age children and one six year old. Pre lockdown, and since Monday, they play out together. They make friends. The parents chatter, and if one parent has to go inside for whatever reason the others keep an eye out for the child. It's almost like a real community, and it's exactly what we wanted when we moved here.

You sound miserable. If I were you I'd just unclench and mind my own business, but if you really can't stand the idea of children doing what children do then I suggest you move to a busy main road, a tower block, or perhaps the middle of nowhere where you have no neighbours.

This. 100%

Years ago, local kids would would play outside but would go to a park, or wherever, to scream and shout, blow off steam and kick balls around, etc.

Now, too many parents don't want their children ever out of their sight so they cause disruption, distress and damage by doing the screaming and shouting and kicking footballs and riding things around on other people's property or in very close proximity.

The final straw for us when we lived on a cul-de-sac was a neighbour setting up cricket stumps for the kids on the green area. There were hard cricket balls flying around all day in the summer. Several cars were dented and someone's conservatory ended up with a hole in it.

No shits were given - always someone else's kids who'd done the damage...

For every person saying 'awww its lovely that children are out playing in the street' there will be dozens more people whose lives are made a misery by it, because the idea of young children happily playing out, causing no problems, is often a long way from reality.

If all the people pissed off at kids playing outside their house petitioned to the council for better local play areas and green spaces for children then the world would be a better place.

@Shrivelled

If all the people pissed off at kids playing outside their house petitioned to the council for better local play areas and green spaces for children then the world would be a better place.

Yes! Good idea.

I suppose I am fortunate as there are woods and ponds just down the road from me and parks nearby. Where I grew up there was a really lovely park just up the road. Nobody played in the street, wouldn't even have thought of it.