To think that you can’t just close a road like this!

[RoadClosed]

Came home from work a few weeks ago (2:30pm) and our road had “road closed” signs on it. Highly unusual as it’s a quiet one way street with a couple of cul-de-sacs leading off it. I parked up and walked the rest of the way home (only 2 minutes, it’s not a long road). When DH came home he said the road wasn’t closed - no signs of it ever being closed.

A few days later same thing, 2:30pm - road closed. No signs of work going on, so I moved the sign and drove to my house. A neighbour text me same day asking why the road is closed as there is no work going on. I said I had no idea so he rang council to ask - they had no idea either and said nobody had applied to close the road either. Therefore we all just moved these signs off the road whenever we saw them and drove past.

Long story short - a woman down the street then went knocking on doors asking people not to move the signs as they were put there during the day to make the street safe for kids to play on!! By kids she means her son. It was explained to her that she can’t just close the road for this reason! Her reasoning is that it’s a short street and it’s only a short walk from the signs to any of the houses on the street. She was told that this isn’t the point, people have a right to be able to drive to their driveways! She’s continuing to put the signs up between 10am and 3pm. AWBU to continue ignoring them??

🤣🤣🤣

She does not own the road, you cannot just do that sort of thing however much you would like to think you can

Take the signs to the recycling centre. The only time a road can be closed without the requesit notice is if there's some sort of emergency situation

No 3 year old should be left to play unsupervised in the street anyway. It's not just car's she needs to worry about FFS.

Burn the flippen things lol!

"She’s continuing to put the signs up between 10am and 3pm."

Then she's breaking the law and I would be reporting her to the police. Frankly, I'd have taken her signs into the boot of my car long since.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1980/66/part/IX/crossheading/obstruction-of-highways-and-streets

You can buy them online - even from Amazon.

OP is right that you can't just randomly close roads but it's a good try!
But clearly kids should know their place! At the bottom of society. They have no rights as they are physically weaker, mentally incomparably lesser, and dependent on adults so they should just wait until they are given permission to do something. And they have no rights to use the spaces around where they live, those are for cars etc for the important people.
Once kids can earn money and vote then they can be entitled to have space in the community!
🙄

Just to add I just want to point out it's tongue in cheek although with an element of truth, but that subtlety will always be completely lost on the internet!

Try actually supervising and you know parenting instead of sending your kid outside to play on the road.

Its no one else's job to have to adapt to shitty lazy parents.

Is she Eastern European op? All our neighbours who are from Poland or Ukraine do this. As in let their 5 year olds play outside in the cul de sac supervising their 2 year olds.

Or unplug their washing machine.

You've missed the point and this is why people are being killed on the roads and pavements at the rate of 5 per day.

Don’t be ridiculous @Summerhillsquare this resident is breaking the law, you can’t just take it upon yourself to close the public highway. Batshit

I understand a poster shared a link to a single scheme in Portsmouth. that doesn’t constitute ‘regulations that councils can use to make streets safer for children’ which absolutely does not include closing the road for play in 99% of councils.

Your language is offensive to the elderly and disabled people @user1477391263
if an old person is so decrepit that they genuinely cannot walk for two minutes, it’s not likely they are actually safe to drive any more
Fucking awful thing to say. I’m a wheelchair user, I’ve heard some offensive shit in my time but ‘so decrepit I cannot walk’ is a new one

@user1477391263 How dare you?! Lots of people (myself included) cannot walk for 2 mins but can drive perfectly fine! People with no legs can drive cars!!!!

And they have no rights to use the spaces around where they live, those are for cars etc for the important people.

But there can be spaces for them (playparks, fields and gardens) and spaces for the cars (roads and drives). Both are important and necessary; there can be provision for everybody.

As for a 3yo being allowed out without constant adult supervision, that is simply neglect and atrocious parenting - whether they're sent to go and play on the climbing frame and swings or in the middle of the road.

No cars go on road where they pay a massive amount of tax and fees to be to provide a necessary job.

People go LITERALLY can go anywhere else.

Please go for a stroll down the motorway and see how quickly the police come to correct you on your misunderstanding that you own the earth and are entitled to do anything without having to follow basic rules (rule set up to protect those who are critically hard of thinking when it comes to basic common sense, which has been proven necessary to be needed here).

The road opposite to me used to do a 'Play Street'.

It was so performative - two adults standing guard at the cones, and a couple of kids milling about aimlessly (probably forced outside by the parents who had pushed for a Play Street). There are two parks, 4 min and 10 min walk away, and the street largely has gardens, apart from some that have been converted to flats. They've stopped it now, thank God.

shes a negelctful parent -its not alanguage barrier its a lazy cow who cant be bothered to supervise thyre own child

We had this with a bloke on the local Facebook group. He announced he was having a grand Christmas lights switch on (it was September) and he was closing the street, which was a main thoroughfare through the village, hiring a mobile disco and would be serving food from his kitchen window.

it was pointed out by several people he couldn’t do any of those things without the right permissions, and as his garden was akin to the local tip it would probably be dangerous to have families traipsing through it as well and that was before anyone mentioned serving food from an unlicensed kitchen and closing the roads. He was quite affronted. Claimed he was doing it anyway and didn’t need permission.

The long suffering neighbours closer to him ended up speaking to the local PCSO and councillor who went and reeled him in a bit. He ended up flouncing off the Facebook group and having a quiet switch with donations for the local animal charity. 12 months on he hasn’t shown any proof to the people who were daft enough to give him money that he even donated it. Some folk are a bit odd.

Really?! I like the word batshit someone said. Ffs get a grip lady, she can't take it upon herself to block the streets. What if an emergency vehicle was needed, also of course the disruption to people who love there. Take the signs and get rid, what an entitled idiot! X

No. They don’t. You don't pay tax in order to be on the road. You pay it for the vehicle that you use. Road tax hasn't directly paid for roads since the 1930s. So it's a personal tax and not a communal tax.

Those signs would go missing.

This