abandoned

[s2ooz]

I have a clearly abandonded car on the street by me, using up a valuable car space, the tax is out of date, but the police dont seem interested, is there a hot line or something for tax, or where should I go to get rid of the rotting junk?

[mel]

Its sh1t I know but a fairly common problem. On the Industrial Estate I own we have on average 1 a month dumped on us and have two courses of action as it is PRIVATE LAND. Attach 7 day notice of disposal to vehicle then call a local recovery company who charge us £25 a time to scrap it or apply to DVLA for the owners details (costs a couple of quid) then send them a bill for disposal and storage (we normally use a flat £75 fee). In reality hardly any of the scroats will pay up at this stage so we send a £40 county court summons to scare them and up the bill to £145 at this stage about 50% pay through fear of a CCJ (the rest are too thick to know what these mean)and we drop the rest because at that stage it starts taking up serious time. It ties up a fair bit of admin but the girls who do it know the routine by now so do it all in about half an hour a time, the ones we get the money off cover the ones we don't and I feel better for sending out the bills anyway. However having said all that there's FA you can do (as yours is in the road) apart from bend the councils ear until they do something or push it into the middle of the road fill all the parking spaces up call the plod and let them sort it out !!!!!! (We have also been known to pick them up with a fork lift and plop them in the main road at the entrance but i can't confess to that )

[johno]

The Driven series on Channel 4 were doing a campaign about dumped cars and whose responsibility it was for collection and disposal etc and how each of about 3 Gov'nt agencies are involved but none have ultimate responsibilty for removal. May be worth checking out their site for info etc etc Cheers mark

[fish]

If it's in the road not causing an obstruction(ie. parked) it is the coucils responsibility to remove....... delay, wait, grass grow, paint dry etc.. However if if is on a pavement/road causing a danger or obstruction the police have responsibility to deal with it. This also includes BURNT out cars that are parked safely (Not that I would suggest anything). The choice is yours....start nagging, eventually the sole individual in charge of the entire coucils abandoned car problem will get it removed just to shut you up.

[adrianr]

If you live in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Humberside, Lancashire, North Yorkshire, Derbyshire or Nottinghamshire, then the DVLA claim to have a VED evasion campaign running which should sort out your problem... from http://www.dvla.gov.uk/other/press_releases.htm: "The national wheelclamping scheme was launched in August 1997 and is operated by Sureway Parking Services Ltd in conjunction with DVLA. The scheme involves contract clamping teams seeking out vehicles on the public road that are not properly taxed. Motorists must pay a fee of £80 to release the wheelclamp, or a £160 impounding fee plus £15 per day storage if the vehicle remains unclaimed for more than 24 hours. In addition, offenders must produce a current licence disc or a surety payment against obtaining one. The surety is forfeit if no licence is produced within 14 days. Vehicles left unclaimed after 5 weeks will be crushed or sold at auction"