Love it, great idea!

click on the little scales icon (nect to the warning triangle) below my details on the left hand side of my post and say something nice!

great idea except that it's a public highway and most people are smart enough to realise only police and DVLA can clamp on these. It may wdissuade a few people though!

Speak to your local council traffic enforcement manager and explain that this is causing difficulties for you and the other residents and that the council are also losing money from these people not paying to park in other places. Failing that the Police have powers they can use where people are obstructing the highway, which this seems to be. I did a little invstigating and discovered that the general rule is "once a public highway, always a public highway" seems to be the rule. There are circumstances where the status can be changed, but these are rare and generally pretty extreme. Althoug it seems anomolous it is perfectly proper for a road to be maintained by individuals yet be a public highway. A right of way is something entirely different however, but that doesn't seem to apply in this case. Overall I'd say your firststop should be your council or local councillor.

same bank?

well said!

Nice to know the Royal mail are looking after the security of our post...

I'd start by being nice and go ad ask them why you're paying grown ups charges whilst you're still a student. If they tell you its because you no longer have a student account show them the t&c's and register a formal complaint. I generally find that a pleasant face to face approach pays dividends rather than going in with all guns blazing. Most people will tyr to help but get really defensive if you start off on th wrong foot.

You need to check the burdens pertaining to your flat and parking space. I have a flat in Glasgow city centre with secure parking and our residents committee is very good at dealing with residents problems. Our problems stem from non residents occupying parking in the spaces we own and pay maintenance for which is bl**dy maddening. As the surrounding streets are controlled parking areas we can get a ticket if we can't get into our own space. By checking the burdens we can see that access to the garage areas is restricted to space owners only and even then there are restrictions on what we can do inside the garage, no commercial vehicles, caravans etc. The Police can't act as its private property, we can't clamp the offenders (illegal in Scotland), if we move the cars out of the garage we risk claims for damage and apparently smashing the windscreens isn't allowed either! Our residents association has the designated power to contract for building repairs, improvements and arrange for parking controls on behalf of the garage users (approx 40% of the residents) which would then be managed through the factors - Peverel (Scotland) If this isn't in your burdens, or there is no residents committee instruction, on whose authority are the factors acting? I think you need to protest en mass to get your message across, and remind them they don't own the building - you do! PS if you have any ideas how we can keep these scumbags out of our garage please let me know!

Interesting thread - I got a ticket for parking half on-half off the pavement when I dropped off a videotape. There were no yellow lines anywhere. I appealed on the basis that there were no restrictions and I was away from my car for 10 minutes max. I received a letter from the police inspector in charge of the traffic enforcement unit at Strathclyde police telling me it was rejected on the basis that I was obstructing the footpath and if I wished I could take the matter to court where the minimum penalty was £30 plus 3 points. I paid up! On this basis I believe the footpath issue is far more relevant than the yellow line or the duration of the "offence".

Just because the road isn't maintained at public expense doesn't mean the council can't help with parking issues, especially if it is a public highway. this is particularly relevant if pavements or gateways are obstructed. Is this what's happening or is it just strangers parking in your street denying spaces for residents?

If they're trying to use the Disabled Persons Parking Spaces (Scotland) Act 2009 they're a wee bit premature. Although it received Royal Assent on 1st April 2009 it doesn't come into force until October 2009, but even if it was on force the blue badge was displayed - game over!

I note they quote "performance against agreed objectives" - agreed by who? The key thing here seems to be that you need to prove that they are unrealistic targets and comparitive results matter a great deal here. If hardly anyone is reaching them, either the market conditions won't allow it or most people need to be disciplined. I think the crucial thing to note is how you are doing against the original targets and how you compare with others against them. You need to show that you are on a par with most of your colleagues and if you are, they are victimising you. The whole world knows that Financial Services are suffering poor sales right now, so how do they think you should be able to go against the tide?

Especially when more people use e-mail and faxes now and the courier companies are multiplying almost daily. I like posties, ours is a star, but this seems a bit suicidal in my view. In most jobs now is the time you need to be seen as indispensable not militant and no matter how big the union, they can't prevent everyone's job especially at times like these.

If the housing association are so sure this is true they won't mind waiting for their share of the benefit coming to them. Just make sure you tell them that the housing officer says it ain't so. What have the benefits office had to say about it?

no signatures and no paperwork - how can they prove it actually exists especially if there's no record on your credit file?

that probably explains his strange facial expression! It is me or does he look like Alexandr the owner of "Compare the Meerkat" website?

Pat, thanks for that it makes much more sense now. I can see why the appeal judge felt the need to rule this way in order to secure the conviction. If I, as registered keeper loaned you my car and you then let someone else drive who was caught by a Gatso, I couldn't identify the driver as I wouldn't know who it was, but as you were the "keeper" at the time you would be able to state it wasn't you and identify the culprit. I suppose it closes the "I don't know who was driving" defence as used by Sir Alex Ferguson et al to evade points for speeding. Thanks again1

Thanks for the explanation - wow! Amazing that this is possible but we can't get violent criminals, rapists and anti-social yobs locked up.....

I'd start with Robert Peston, the BBC guy who thinks he's Tom Cruise. He loves the limelight and thinks he's a wizz on all things bank-related. You'll porbably have to let him say it was his scoop though!

My God this is still going on? Let me get this straight in my head as I think I must have missed something here - You place an ad for a fridge and some guy comes around to see it, seems happy and buys it. Then his wife decides its got to go back but you must collect it but this is after they've been using it to keep food in. You tell them you're not collecting it but offer them their money back however they're not happy and make abusive phone calls and allegations about the product on a forum that weren't true It all goes quiet than you get a bailiffs letter demanding payment and it seems you owe them £500. It goes to court and now you have to defend yourself against the judgement? This kind of thing could kill e-bay and all those adverts in the local papers stone dead! I get the feeling that this couple would claim damages even if the fridge had been free - where I'm baffled is how this ever came to court and how nobody chucked it out whilst laughing uncontrollably? Like I said previously, the world's gone mad.....

Looks like you're on a roll - hang on in there!

if you think I've helped, feel free to tickle my scales......

can you clarify for us?

Reading through these two documents I can see why you would think that but moving to an Ultimate Reward account overrides your student status. It says (in the interest rates sheet) that note 2 applies where note 2 advises that studnent status is defined in the Bank of Scotland account conditions. What they are saying, in a very unclear and clumsy way, is that the bank regards you as a student only if you have a student account. I know this because RBS have the same rules but their explanation is clearer. I'd be interested to know if anyone mentioned that you would be losing the student benefits when you switched to the Ultimate Reward account? If they didn't you may have a case against them for that.