This was a notice received by residents at Pouces Cottages at Manston yesterday. One of the residents, Mr Brian Murray, rang up Andy at CGP to ask what they were going to do and why were they doing it. The reply related to me was along the lines of
" you weren't very neighbourly towards us (a referemce to Stop China Gateway Campaign presumably) so we are not being neighbourly to you". The pictures below awaited residents on their return tonight.
What CGP has done is deliberately block a parking space at the side of the cottages with a two strand barbed wire fence and to enclose a part of the verge where residents and visitors were able to park, partly off the road.
In one fell swoop, CGP has shown itself to be rather spiteful and vindictive and more worryingly has appeared to ignore safety issues by placing barbed wire strands so close to the Highway as to pose a hazard to pedestrians passing by. I am sure that KCC Highways, local KCC Cllrs and TDC Cllrs will have heard about this already.
Is this the way a major developer wishes to make friends and influence people positively? I would urge them to remove the fencing very quickly before Newspapers and TV Cameras descend on the fencing or before they are sued by a passing horse-rider or pedestrian.
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13 comments:
I would urge someone to pop along with a pair of wire cutters and lop the lot back off. No witnesses no problems
Barbed wire may be used to defend your property, but the law puts certain restrictions on its use.
Section 104 of the Highways Act, 1980, says that where barbed wire on land adjoining a highway is a nuisance - which means it is likely to cause injury to people or animals using the road - a notice may be issued by the local authority requiring its removal. Local authorities usually consider barbed wire which is less than 2.4 metres from the ground to be a nuisance to highway users.
If injury results on your premises, you could be faced with claims for damages under the Occupier Liability Acts. Occupiers of premises have a duty of care to people entering or using the premises. This duty even extends to trespassers, although it is not so extensive as towards people lawfully visiting or using the premises. A trespasser who could not be aware that glass was on top of a wall, or nails on a fence, and was injured, could have a claim against you despite the fact they were not authorised to be on your property.
From a police web site:-
www.thamesvalley.police.uk/reduction/saferhomes/homesecurity/helaw.htm
20.30, sadly what you are suggesting is criminal damage. I think the residents who are clearly targeted here, are wise enough not to consider such action. However, as 21.55 points out,if residents or passers-by hurt themselves on the wire, Claims Solicitors would be happy to get involved!
There again if one of them residents parks on land owned by another and injures themselves, even though technically they were trespassing they could sue the landowner if negligence were proven. The landowner is merely exercising their right to protect their property, why would anyone moan about that?
So why is it wrong to stop others using your land without permission, has any one aske CGP if they could park there?
00.03 and 12.06, no one is disputing the right of a land-owner to fence the land they own, but CGP has owned this land since Spring 2007. Why should it now want to go to the expense of putting in a two strand barbed wire fence in front of another perfectly adequate fence and only on the verge close to Pouces Cottages where cottagers and visitors have traditionally parked? The clear conclusion, however you may care to defend it, is that CGP is being petty and perhaps stupid and what was said to Mr Murray would seem to intimate clearly the purpose behind this action by CGP.
There is a perfectly adequate fence round the field anyway and the verge has been cut by TDC for decades so presumably CGP owns the field and the council or the county owns the verge. To be this spiteful and stop the residents parking there is a PR disaster for the company.
If anyone is injured by the wire as it is on the roadside then the company will end up in court. If a car is coming towards a horserider, cyclist or pedestrian there is nowhere to escape to. The road is already a rat run and this could lead to a serious accident.
It smacks of blatant harassment of the cottage residents.
If anybody had any doubt about the nastiness of the characters whom they are dealing with - those doubts have been eased!
I didn't know that carpet bagger Eze-kill also sold barbed wire!
Ah the good old Law of Tort and Nuisance.
When one looks at the scope of Tort and private nuisance a certain case amongst others comes to mind, Hunter and others v Canary wharf Limited.
One wonders if a novel case can be presented here, especially under art 8 and that the CGP application has been a reasonable development in all the circumstances?
I eer, rest my case.
13.12, I do not believe CGP are nasty characters at all; its just the action that seems pointless and petty. Hopefully, whatever the reasons for putting the fencing up, they will be re-considering.
23.56, I am reliably informed taht the carpet emporium in Northdown Road does not stock barbed wire.
09.04, some interesting points. Would you care to elaborate?
Certainly Biggles, old chap
I mentioned that in law, any learned person would look at the issues of negligence and nuisance. I turn to the issue of the last application and I stated “has been a reasonable development in all the circumstances” by this I mean the protean nature of the possible right to sue in private nuisance or negligence for the incumbent owners of the cottages in question.
Given that there are significant issues that have not been taken into account by the Environment Agency and Natural England. It may well be that the Local Planning Authority [LPA] has failed to take into account the cumulative affect of developments in that area and could be liable under article 8 of the human rights act and here I would be looking into the khorasadjian case where during this case it was deduced that individuals where protected under the protection of Harassment act 1997.
“The Place of Private Nuisance in a Modern Law of Torts in [1989] C.L.J. 214. In any event, it is right for present purposes to regard the typical cases of private nuisance as being those concerned with interference with the enjoyment of land and, as such, generally actionable only by a person with a right in the land. Characteristic examples of cases of this kind are those concerned with noise, vibrations, noxious smells and the like. The two appeals with which your Lordships are here concerned arise from actions of this character”
It may well be that the above enjoyment of land extends to the LPA not instigating proper noise monitoring controls at the local Airport
The issue here is how far the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights goes to protect the enjoyment of ones land “The protection of the home, as an aspect of the right to respect for private and family life.
The reality is that a common theme emerges from their lordships’ judgments and they relate to the unpredictability of building developments and that is why the issue of the ‘cumulative affect’ has not been considered by the LPA, so I would ask Negligence or Nuisance and as both may overlap and may provide concurrent remedies. If I was a resident of the cottages and elsewhere for that matter I would be checking the legal insurance attaching to some house insurances.
19.25, thank you for that. With the residents of Pouces Cottages now having the possibility of an Airport Master Plan road cutting behind their properties with a taxi-way for jets blasting the front of their houses and CGP surrounding them with industrial buildings, what recourse do they have other than reliance on their LPA, Thanet District Council?
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