Maintenance on public land behind my fence

[unclebulgaria67]

There should be a council team you can phone about this. They might have it recorded to contact you to replace the fence panels that have been damaged.

 

With my local council they are very quick in dealing with things. Send them an email and you get a response within a couple of days.

[Myfamily]

Hi All,

 

well as I said in post 25. the council came and cleared basically the bit that I can see from my house, where the panels have been broken.

 

They wrote an e-mail to me to say

 

Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to your email.

 

I am pleased to advise that our teams did visit the site on Wednesday 12th April to remove the rubbish and begin work on removing the brambles. Whilst we understand your disappointment, we believe that the fence at the rear of your property was already damaged prior to our work and this was not down to the pressure exerted by the ivy. Our team reported that the fence already seemed in need of repair and maintenance and our operatives were especially careful when removing the brambles and ivy, not to damage the fence further.

 

With this in mind, we do not accept the liability or responsibility for the replacement or maintenance of your fence. If you wish to pursue your claim then please contact our insurance section. For your convenience I have listed their contact details below

************

************

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If you believe there is further work still to be completed, then I would be happy to visit the site with yourself at a convenient time to discuss what we can do and arrange any further work.

 

Thank you for contacting the Parks, Estates and Open Spaces team and if you have any further enquiries, please do not hesitate to contact me.

...................................................................................................................................................

 

Now I have taken further pictures, the area is no-where near clear, and my previous pictures show that you can't even see the fence under all the ivy and bramble let alone get to them to do any maintenance!!

 

I have taken a picture of another panel which looks in good condition, as it didn't get attacked by weeds! so I don't the actual fence would have broken if it hadn't been destroyed by weeds, ivy and bramble! but how did they expect me to do any maintenance when I can't actually get access to it from both sides.

 

And I have gone to the land behind the fence and taken further pictures as the work is no where near completed, they seem to say it is in their e-mail.

 

I don't see how their " operatives" can sya it needed repair BEFORE they pulled off the weeds as you could not see the fence!

 

Any help please?

[ericsbrother]

with regard to how clear it is, that is basically what is needed under public liability rather than waht you might want to see.

The issue of the fence is tricky because it was always in your powers to prevent the damage being done but ironically that may have lead to you being prosecuted for criminal damage to their weeds.

They have invited you to contact their insurers so i would. get a quote for replacing the damged section and then say that normal deterioration would have meant the fence would last for another x years so the loss to you is (cost of fence) / years expected life x actual life. so for example. fence costs £400 and is due to last 20 years that works out at £20/year. actual life of fence 10 years so damage = £20x10= £200.

you need numbers to be rational and reasonable for a like for like replacement so no brass knobs or gold paint.

[Myfamily]

ok I see. but how they can say there was already damage is a joke - you couldn't even see the fence it was almost completely covered, so there would have been no way for me to do any kind of maintenance on it from that side!.

 

Also they have completely ignored my question about the access to my garage and neighbouring garages, it runs parallel with the public access road and the land from the public path has slipped and created a bulge so that you can't drive down this route to the garages. they haven't even mentioned it, they have effectively blocked mine and my neighbour access off to our own garages - what Can I do about that?

[ericsbrother]

the you know what to do. You lay it all out before them in a letter with photographs and tell them what you expect (difficult on the shared access but as it affects you then you can take the lead on this), how much it will cost if you get the work done and invite them to make as ite visit as a precursor to a remedy. Give them a limite amount of time to respond otherwise you may take legal action to recover the costs of remediation. This may well mean you have to shell out to do the work first yourself but give them the opportunity to do something. Get a quote before you write so you both know what the amount is likely to be