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    • If you are buying a used car – you need to read this survival guide.
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    • Hello,

      On 15/1/24 booked appointment with Big Motoring World (BMW) to view a mini on 17/1/24 at 8pm at their Enfield dealership.  

      Car was dirty and test drive was two circuits of roundabout on entry to the showroom.  Was p/x my car and rushed by sales exec and a manager into buying the mini and a 3yr warranty that night, sale all wrapped up by 10pm.  They strongly advised me taking warranty out on car that age (2017) and confirmed it was honoured at over 500 UK registered garages.

      The next day, 18/1/24 noticed amber engine warning light on dashboard , immediately phoned BMW aftercare team to ask for it to be investigated asap at nearest garage to me. After 15 mins on hold was told only their 5 service centres across the UK can deal with car issues with earliest date for inspection in March ! Said I’m not happy with that given what sales team advised or driving car. Told an amber warning light only advisory so to drive with caution and call back when light goes red.

      I’m not happy to do this, drive the car or with the after care experience (a sign of further stresses to come) so want a refund and to return the car asap.

      Please can you advise what I need to do today to get this done. 
       

      Many thanks 
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    • Housing Association property flooding. https://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/topic/438641-housing-association-property-flooding/&do=findComment&comment=5124299
      • 160 replies
    • We have finally managed to obtain the transcript of this case.

      The judge's reasoning is very useful and will certainly be helpful in any other cases relating to third-party rights where the customer has contracted with the courier company by using a broker.
      This is generally speaking the problem with using PackLink who are domiciled in Spain and very conveniently out of reach of the British justice system.

      Frankly I don't think that is any accident.

      One of the points that the judge made was that the customers contract with the broker specifically refers to the courier – and it is clear that the courier knows that they are acting for a third party. There is no need to name the third party. They just have to be recognisably part of a class of person – such as a sender or a recipient of the parcel.

      Please note that a recent case against UPS failed on exactly the same issue with the judge held that the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 did not apply.

      We will be getting that transcript very soon. We will look at it and we will understand how the judge made such catastrophic mistakes. It was a very poor judgement.
      We will be recommending that people do include this adverse judgement in their bundle so that when they go to county court the judge will see both sides and see the arguments against this adverse judgement.
      Also, we will be to demonstrate to the judge that we are fair-minded and that we don't mind bringing everything to the attention of the judge even if it is against our own interests.
      This is good ethical practice.

      It would be very nice if the parcel delivery companies – including EVRi – practised this kind of thing as well.

       

      OT APPROVED, 365MC637, FAROOQ, EVRi, 12.07.23 (BRENT) - J v4.pdf
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Can anyone tell me what the law is on planning application time limits are?

 

Do the council have to place a notice on the building that is the subject of the planning application and if so do they have to allow a certain amount of time between posting the notice and actually making a planning decision?

 

Thanks in advance.

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  • 4 weeks later...

An application for a developement that will be directly behind my house has just been approved.

 

I objected to it but when reading the reasons for the application's acceptance it appears that a number of points I raised have not been addressed and in other cases where they have been addressed it seems the Council are just saying "we are right, you are wrong"

 

I have tried to find out how or even if one can raise these points with the council. I am told that once permission is granted there is no avenue of appeal for objectors.

 

Thanks.

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Hi johnjordan,

 

This is the unfair thing about planning law. If an application is refused, the applicant can appeal. As you say, there is no avenue of appeal for objectors, apart from a Judicial Review which would cost many thousands of pounds which is why most people can't do that. Even if the Council has gone against its own UDP or RDP they will get away with it because of the costs incurred by anyone taking them to a Judicial Review, and unless you have a six figure sum at your disposal I wouldn't advise it.

 

DD

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Thanks for that DD. That's what I was afraid of.

 

The way the application was handled just reinforces my opinion that the whole system is corrupt. I mean how can you place a site notice a mile away from the proposed development site?

 

Anyway, thanks for the reply.

 

Regards

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They are corrupt. There is an authority in the South of England which is so corrupt you wouldn't believe it. There was a planning application which my mum discovered only by accident. The address they had sent the notice to was just ridiculous and there was no excuse for it at all.

 

In London an authority close to me refused basement combined with wraparound extensions in a terraced Victorian street. Fine, thought the residents, and then they allowed the next one through and said they shouldn't have done - it was "an oversight".

 

I'm sorry I couldn't give you more positive news, but planning law is just a joke.

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One of my objections was on the grounds that the development will deprive me of my right to peaceful enjoyment of my house as guaranteed by Article 8 of the ECHR. The council have dismissed that argument citing decisions made in the House of Lords in" Alconbury 2003 & Begum 2003" which established clearly in the UK context that the protection of human rights in planning and administrative decisions generally "did not lie high on the scale of rights requiring the greatest protection and intervention by the courts"

 

From what I can see Alconbury and Begum were Article 6 appeals, the right to a fair trial so I don't know what the Council mean.

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I think you have to be a criminal for the courts to allow you to use human rights legislation!

 

I think the Council are choosing to interpret those decisions in a way which excuses what they are doing. They know they will get away with it because once they have granted permission there is nothing you can do without a lot of money.

 

A friend of mine is a planning lawyer and she has objected to planning applications in her street using absolutely correct legal arguments, references to their own UDP and so on, and still the Council gave permission for a development which will essentially wreck her house. In London at the moment there is a huge trend in developing terraced Victorian houses by developing the side extension, extending out into the garden, and digging out the basement, which will obviously affect the structure of the neighbouring houses. In my friend's street, one house has virtually collapsed, so she lives in terror of he same happening to her house. These extensions take about a year to complete and the adjoining houses are invariably damaged, even if they don't collapse. The people who are doing these extensions aren't young families with children, they are rich city people, often from abroad, who see the development as a money making exercise and of course they can afford to rent another large, lovely house so they are not inconvenienced at all. The poor neighbours to the development of course have to put up with the dirt and noise for a year and have no rights at all.

 

However, I did use the human rights legislation on one occasion in a planning matter and thought I had no hope at all but much to my astonishment the organization in question was told they should go away and look at alternatives. That is still ongoing so we're not out of the woods yet, but the look on the architect's face when the decision was given was absolutely priceless. The company was so convinced the planning meeting was just a formality that they had actually put up notices on the site announcing that work was to start five days after the planning meeting. Oh dear .......

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However, I did use the human rights legislation on one occasion in a planning matter and thought I had no hope at all but much to my astonishment the organization in question was told they should go away and look at alternatives. That is still ongoing so we're not out of the woods yet, but the look on the architect's face when the decision was given was absolutely priceless. The company was so convinced the planning meeting was just a formality that they had actually put up notices on the site announcing that work was to start five days after the planning meeting. Oh dear .......

 

Great stuff. Can you put on here what exactly it was that you used? I appreciate it may be personal or confidential and if it is then I will understand

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I'm very happy to let you have it. Unfortunately at the time my computer was down and I had to handwrite the lot, so will have to dig it out. I'm not quite certain where it is so can you bear with me please. They only give you about three minutes to speak so it had to be pretty succinct. The main part was the quiet enjoyment of my mother's home, her health - she has hypertension and I said the ongoing development would probably kill her off (true), and there was also an issue with them using a footpath where we probably owned the subsoil to the midpoint. Fortunately the planning committee agreed that the developers could have designed the site differently so sent them away to look at alternatives. It was astonishing - not one member of the planning committee supported the development as it was then planned. As I mentioned, we aren't out of the woods yet, and the owner of the land had a very bad year last year so may not now be actively pursuing the development until their own situation improves. We are just waiting .....

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I'm very happy to let you have it. Unfortunately at the time my computer was down and I had to handwrite the lot, so will have to dig it out. I'm not quite certain where it is so can you bear with me please. They only give you about three minutes to speak so it had to be pretty succinct. The main part was the quiet enjoyment of my mother's home, her health - she has hypertension and I said the ongoing development would probably kill her off (true), and there was also an issue with them using a footpath where we probably owned the subsoil to the midpoint. Fortunately the planning committee agreed that the developers could have designed the site differently so sent them away to look at alternatives. It was astonishing - not one member of the planning committee supported the development as it was then planned. As I mentioned, we aren't out of the woods yet, and the owner of the land had a very bad year last year so may not now be actively pursuing the development until their own situation improves. We are just waiting .....

 

No need to dig it out DD, I get the gist of it. Unfortunately we didn't get to a public meeting, ours was decided by some kid behind a desk.

 

I hope yours goes well for you and your mother.

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  • 2 weeks later...

It's too late now that planning has been granted. All you can do is make sure they do not breach any conditions imposed on their grant of planning approval and get the council enforcement officer out if they step out of line.I urge people who have an objection to speak to their local councillor early on. They will know what is a valid planning objection and what is not and can advise you. Just not liking what a neighbour is proposing is not good enough to stop an application, as has been said above, you have to follow their guide lines and point out where the development breaches them. Local councillors often have the power to insist that a contravertial application goes before the planning committee and is not decided as delegated authority by a faceless planner. You then have a right to speak (albeit very briefly) and pursuade the councillors to agree with you.

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  • 10 months later...

Really not sure if anyone on here can help as I fear I'm heading into the realm of specialist legal minefield.

 

My wife and I have lived in our current house for 28 years, we bought it knowing that it was next to a school and until 2009 never had a noise problem accepting that there would be school noise during the normal school day. However in 2009 the school built a massive sports hall behind our house completely obliterating lovely views that we previously enjoyed and bringing with it associated noise until 8pm every weekday night, 6pm Saturdays and 4pm Sundays.

 

Then, 2 weeks before Christmas 2012 we were informed that the school were going to build a full size artificial football pitch and car park and that the car park would be between my house and the sports hall. It would also be floodlit by 15 metre floodlights and available for use until 10pm every night including weekends. Last Sunday a new league started and the pitch was in continuous use from 9am until 8.30pm. For those reading this not aquainted with football in involves a certain amount of shouting, some of the words not being very savoury and certainly not what I would want my grandchildren to hear if they were playing in my garden. This new Sunday league means that they now play football on that pitch seven days a week without any respite.

 

And therein lies the problem in that because of this constant noise and swearing I am not happy for my wife and family to use our garden whilst this is going on, but why should that be? I thought the Human Rights Act (HRA) gave me the right to peaceful use of my home but it seems the school have other ideas. I appreciate the planning permission allows use for these hours despite objections from residents but the council have said that the rights of those that want to kick a ball around every day and night override our rights to a couple of hours peace and quiet a week. It's not as if they didn't have places to play football before this pitch was built as there are plenty of other pitches, artificial and real grass, in the area that they were using.

Also now the school have built the new car park that is becoming a bit of a social centre with players and spectators congregating there whilst the sports hall or footbal pitch are in use. We have people sitting in their cars with radios on and kids playing ball in the car park. We have been told by the school caretaker that users have been urinating up against our garden fences but I have not actually witnessed this myself.

 

I do feel that my rights are being violated by having to submit to noise from this football pitch and car park from about 6pm until 10pm and all day at weekends. Surely I am entitled to a bit of piece and quiet. I appreciate it is a school and as I said above I have no problem with school noise during the school day. I did not move next to what has now become a leisure centre. As a normal householder I do not have the money to take the school to court on Human Rights grounds so any help I can get from people on this site would be very much appreciated. Is there anywhere I could go for an unbiased opinion as to whether or not I have a valid complaint? My local council don't want to know as they have invested money in the pitch due to the school not being able to raise enough to satisfy the Football Associaton who put up the bulk of the money and as I said before that have decided that the players rights outweigh mine.

 

The school concerned is now an Academy which I believe means they are not connected to the local education authority any more so I believe this would be a metter between myself and the school rather than the local education authority.

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Further to my original post, and I apologise for it's length, i also have to say that the planning application contained a number of misrepresentations, the main one being that the 15 metre high floodlights would be "sited out of view and screened from the closest (mine and my neighbour) residential houses by the new sports hall building and if I knew how to attach photographs to this post I could show how stupid this statement was; I cannot understand how the council did not challenge it. The planning application also states in various places that local residents were consulted about it's siting etc. but this is an outright lie as the first residents new of the proposal was two days before the application was lodged with the council.

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Hi johnjordan,

 

I managed to stop a planning application by using the Human Rights Act as one of my objections but in this case permission has been granted and it seems they have run roughshod over all the complaints.

 

What was the view of the local councillors at the planning application? Did you attend? Some LAs allow the public to speak, but others won't.

 

Were there no conditions put on the planning permission?

 

Let me come back to you in the morning.

 

DD

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Thanks for the quick reply.

My local councillors ignored all my efforts to contact them until after the application had been approved so we were not able to get it referred to full committee. The only condition was that the floodlights would be turned off at 10pm. Other points in the application, such as rubber inserts between the fence and posts to minimise the rattle when ball hits fence were ignored.

I did quote the HRA in my objection but it was ignored.

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  • 2 months later...

Sorry if this is the wrong forum.

We moved into our present property in 1984. The house is next to a school and we expected to have to hear normal school noise during the normal school day. This worked well for the first 25 years with noise from about 08.45 until 16.00 after which all went quiet. We had the odd football match on a Saturday morning on the school playing fields but by lunchtime that was over too.

 

However in 2009 the school built a massive sports hall behind our garden and the council planning permission allowed it to be used until 20.00hrs on weekdays, 18.00hrs on Saturdays and 16.00hrs on Sundays & Bank Holidays. As well as the noise we then had to endure the sports hall also obliterated the view we previously enjoyed over the school playing fields and the open countryside beyond.

 

Three weeks before Christmas 2012 the school informed us that they were going to build a full size artificial football pitch behind the sports hall and a 35 space car park behind my garden fence. The planning application had already been prepared and was lodged with the council two days later. The application was so full of lies and inaccuracies that I submitted a lengthy objection to the council but it was ignored. As an example the application said that the 50 foot high floodlights would be out of view of the nearest residences, of which I am one. The council must have realised that you cannot hide 50 foot high floodlights but did not challenge it. We now have football noise every night of the week including Sundays and have been told that the pitch has been booked throughout the year. We therefore now have no peaceful use of our garden and have to close our lounge windows unless we want to hear the shouting and swearing from the pitch and the noise of cars entering and leaving the car park all evening. It has been said by one of the users that in the first 4 months of use it had 18,000 visitors, every one of which went past my rear garden fence.

 

In addition to all this the school have also taken bookings for a childrens club to run every week day throughout every school holiday period, where before we could enjoy peace and quiet during school holidays. They are also advertising for childrens parties to be held in the area behind my garden.

 

As a consequence of these developments the value of my property has been substantially reduced: potential purchasers have backed out when they saw and heard them. When the sports hall was built I applied for a reduction in my council tax band and at the appeal hearing the council agreed that the value of my property had been reduced by approx. £25,000 but that did not justify a reduction in my band.

 

Obviously the arrival of this football pitch and car park must have reduced it even more and the purpose of this post is to ask if anyone can suggest how and to whom I might be able to apply for compensation for this drop in value.

 

I should add that the school is now an academy. I am not being a spoilsport and denying anyone the enjoyment of playing football as there are many other sites in the area that they could and in fact did use before all of which are nowhere near residential areas.

 

I have complained to the school not only about the noise from the football pitch but also about the lies made in the planning application but this fell on deaf ears. Unfortunately the head teacher is new to the school and is basically seeing out his last couple of years before retirement. The school appears to be run by the Business Manager who is a 'large' woman and looks to intimidate everyone around her. The local council have a monetary investment in the pitch which is perverse as they also have their own pitches which are now experiencing reduced income because of the school pitch.

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I cannot afford a solicitor to investigate whether my rights under Article 8 of the Human Rights act are being abused.

 

Thank you.

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Large speakers in your garden blasting out bad music at full volume.

They might apply to a noise control order or whatever it's called, but it will take time and effort.

 

Just joking :-D, what you could do is ring the council every night on emergency number complaining of swearing and shouting.

Keep the ref numbers and be persistent.

If you manage to record swearing, call the police and report the asb.

If you make enough fuss they will probably attend and stop the games.

Players will get fed up and book another pitch.

I doubt you will ever see a penny in compensation because of your house loss of value.

My friend used to live on the top floor of a 4 storey building with fantastic view.

They build a 10 storey 'hotel' just on his border but it never opened.

It's now a derelict building blocking the beautiful view.

He's still battling to get it demolished almost 20 years on.

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I'm not sure you could get compensation for this. I don't think there is any right for the surrounding area to stay the same. If nearby developments affect your house price that's unfortunate but part of life I think ... in any event having a nearby school will increase the house value.

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I know it isn't much help in the grand scheme of things but you might at least manage to get the council tax banding reduced on your property. You can claim that "substantial physical changes have taken place in the area where you live since the property was first banded, and you believe these have reduced the value of your property." You can do this at any time under this heading so don't let them feed you any line about having to apply within 6 months of buying the property. They tried that with me but perseverance won through and my band D house is now a band A.

http://www.voa.gov.uk/corporate/counciltax/whatToDoIfYouDisagreeWithCTBand-England.html#circumstances

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Thanks for the replies.

 

I will certainly apply for my council tax band to be reduced.

 

Steampowered...I appreciate that, but the substantial change the school has made to the area has made houses very difficult to sell once prospective purchasers realise that they will have to endure noise from the sports hall, football pitch and car park until 10pm every evening.

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  • 1 year later...

I live behind a school that has turned itself into a leisure centre.

 

 

They have built a large sports hall, a full size 3G football pitch and a car park which goes to within 7 metres of my garden fence.

The continual noise from these facilities which are used by the community in the evenings until 10pm

and all day Saturdays and Sundays is making our life a misery.

 

My local Environmental Health people say the level of noise is acceptable but what they don't seem to understand is that with the school

and these facilities we are subjected to noise for up to 14 hours every day.

 

 

I'm not objecting to the noise during the school day as the school was there when we moved in 30 years ago.

However we did not move next to a leisure centre which is what it has become.

 

I digress.

..the reason for this posting is that the school have said they are considering legal action to stop me posting on Twitter

whenever we are disturbed by the noise from these facilities.

 

 

I stress that I only mention facts and do not exaggerate in any way.

I was under the impression that as long as I did not post untruths I could not be sued.

They have said that my posts are derogatory which I agree they are

but then surely they should be taking steps to address this instead of trying to shut me up.

 

Any advice as to where I stand legally would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

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I suppose they are threatening a claim for defamation?

 

Providing that your posts are purely factual (and can be proven to be) then there is absolutely nothing that they can do.

 

Keep recordings, video and audio, timestamped where possible and report based strictly what you see and hear and you should be safe. A post such as "Sick and tired of this noise - after 14 hours I have had enough of it" is fine, but straying away into areas such as "The leisure centre owners only got permission after bribing the council and bu*ger the residents" would clearly be going towards a more dangerous area (unless of course you could prove it!)

 

Threats such as these rarely materialise anyway.

Any advice given is done so on the assumption that recipients will also take professional advice where appropriate.

 

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It is also worth pointing out that if they went to court, it would be in the public domain for the press to pick up on. Do they really want the negative publicity that might result...

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No... you can't eat my brain just yet. I need it a little while longer.

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Think I have just found your tweets - only took a search for Leisure Centre Noise :-)

 

No worries there - purely opinion and factual - can't even see much that could be called derogatory either.

 

As stated previously - keep a record and recordings to back up your views.

Any advice given is done so on the assumption that recipients will also take professional advice where appropriate.

 

PLEASE HELP US TO KEEP THIS SITE RUNNING

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If I have been helpful in any way - please feel free to click on the STAR to the left!

 

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good luck to you.

 

 

if the authorities can pay people living within XXX yrds of wind turbine £1000's in noise compensation.

then why cant they pay you and the other neighbours for your noise

 

 

dx

please don't hit Quote...just type we know what we said earlier..

DCA's view debtors as suckers, marks and mugs

NO DCA has ANY legal powers whatsoever on ANY debt no matter what it's Type

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are NOT and can NEVER  be BAILIFFS. even if a debt has been to court..

If everyone stopped blindly paying DCA's Tomorrow, their industry would collapse overnight... 

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