Detached Victorian renovation, London.

[Harry Flashman]

Pleasure! We love this house, and now that it feels lived in, it has really come into its own. Very lucky.

[Harry Flashman]

Crosby99 said:

Another fan of (dark) green in a kitchen:





The light very different when these two shots were taken...and the position of the photographer

Love that. I do wish we had gone a few shades lighter. These days, as I said above, I think I would have done our main kitchen in F&B Bancha, with the island in a light colour to lift it all a bit.

Which is exactly what I will do when I have it repainted one day. This is why I like solid wood, painted kitchen doors as opposed to vinyl wrapped abominations. Dead easy and relatively cheap to give your kitchen a makeover.

[Harry Flashman]

This may seem like a small thing, but it's big to us. After a 3 year battle with the council, they are dropping the kerb. This is just in time as we are about to have a controlled parking zone (the reason they did everything to try to stall this). Once a CPZ was in place, planning or the council would have probably refused this.

We now have an in and out driveway, which is useful, probably good for the value of the house, and quite rare in London.

They charged us nearly 3 grand for the privilege of dropping the kerb and fitting these blocks, by the way. The last 11 month delay since permission was granted (note that at 12 months we would have had to re-apply even if the delay was not our fault die to the multi stage and horribly complex procedure that involves different government departments) was due to, apparently, the blocks for the job being unavailable. Clearly horsest.

But in a borough with an increasingly anti-car agenda, where they will soon charge a fortune for parking in any street, a three car drive with EV charging points and proper access is, I think, worth the money, long term.

This has been a real exercise in learning the petty mindedness and corruption of our council. Right down to the last inspector who commented that the house was too big for one family, and that no one needed off street parking as cars should all be banned so that people should use bicycles. This apparently included my Nissan Leaf as 'all those metal boxes are just lethal and selfish'.

This is the person they employ to assess parking needs. Great.

[Harry Flashman]

I am now going to park my mates Ferret armoured car on the drive, engine running, for the next time the commie witch turns up to sign off the work.

[Harry Flashman]

Fermit said:

You'd think they'd show a keen interest in clearing the road of cars FFS. And £3k for the work?! For that money I'd want Kylie Minogue doing the job in the buff. How long did it take them to complete?

They'll be done by today. 2 days.

Oh, that excludes the planning fees, utility clearance fees, and random council fees for no reason whatsoever.

Total racket.

[Harry Flashman]

Agree on the comments on both ROI, and general uselessness of this council.

[Harry Flashman]

okgo said:

Given the house relative to the immediate area I suppose any councillor isn't going to be well versed in dealing with families in large houses, they're pretty rare. I doubt you'd get the same schtick in Wandsworth...

We're trying to get trees planted on our street (same council, about a mile north of you) and just the back and forth, effort and rubbish in getting anything done is tiring. Obviously you'd kind of expect that if they were going to do it FOC, but no, I've had to corale the street into paying £480 per tree (x8 as short st) and STILL they're useless.

Didn't realise you were local?!

Beer. Soon.

[Harry Flashman]

okgo said:

To be fair, driving around where we live is mostly a pointless thing to do, there is endless public transport, obviously not ALWAYS the best way, but as I'm sure Harry knows, you can live life perfectly easily with very infrequent car use here.

Yup. I use my Brompton as much as I use my car. When travelling alone.

But I have two very small children. I need to be able to use a car. Public transport here is pathetic to go across London. Can you believe that there is no bus that simply follows the South Circular? I can get to London Bridge or Kings Cross faster and more easily than I can get to Clapham.

Edited by Harry Flashman on Tuesday 18th January 14:41

[Harry Flashman]

MrJuice said:

I didn't realise just how much power councillors and, in particular, portfolio holders have until we were fighting off a stupid Low Traffic Neighborhood (LTN) scheme locally. It was a mammoth fight and I was seriously thinking of selling my forever home because of it.

Did you succeed with fighting off the LTNs? We did not and local traffic is now a total mess.

Our ciu cil is led by Claire Holland, of cycling fanaticism fame. There is no democracy here at local level on such issues as LTNs and cycle lanes. Consultations are a farce.

They are turning Streatham High Road, a three lane major artery, to one lane for cars. It is going to logjam the whole region.

[Harry Flashman]

Pheo said:

Harry, sorry you’ve had that experience. I would file a formal complaint against the officer involved via the councils procedure once the work is done. Completely inappropriate comments.

Re the power the portfolio holder has - less so in a committee system but sadly governing parties normally abolish and use a cabinet approach because well, discussion is slow and awkward.

I'm just going to say she made a racist comment. Far more chance of action

[Harry Flashman]

MrJuice said:

We did, thankfully. It was utter chaos for the 3-4 months it was in. It benefitted a few roads who suddenly had zero traffic and were previously used as "rat runs". It negatively impacted many multiples more people and roads and after a lot of media work by a few dedicated people and a lot of lobbying, it was rightly overturned. The portfolio holder for environment is an administrator at Tesco. You couldn't make this st up, it was that bad.

This was Harrow.

Lambeth, they are putting more in. Have not listened to residents at all.

[Harry Flashman]

Ha! Not sure I stuck it to the man at £3k+ cost to me!

But in time, I think it will be worth it.

The job is a good one, to be fair, even if the blocks don't match the colour of the drive: it looks smart. They also were meant to put in a 4m crossover and only did 3m, which will make getting a car out harder. But still, I suspect worth it.

Just a white line to be painted on the road now. Will probably take another year or two.

The main advantage will be people not parking across the drive when I have a car in it. Without the dropped kerb, it's perfectly OK to do this as technically the drive is not a parking space without the correct crossover.

Edited by Harry Flashman on Tuesday 18th January 15:39

[Harry Flashman]

Hope so! It's always good to remember where we came from when I get grumpy about such spends...this thread helps!

78 front by baconrashers, on Flickr

IMG_20220118_154611 by baconrashers, on Flickr

DSC_0720.jpg by baconrashers, on Flickr

IMG_20220118_153450 by baconrashers, on Flickr

Edited by Harry Flashman on Tuesday 18th January 15:53

[Harry Flashman]

matrignano said:

What happens if a dropped kerb magically appears in front of your driveway?
Is any neighbour or passer by likely to report it to the council?
Would the council investigate who carried the work out, and even if they did, would they find out?

Probably not. But consequences of getting busted probably not worth the hassle.

My driveway guy offered to do it on the sly a couple of years back. Perhaps stupidly, I said no. But I would have saved a couple of grand, but then worried about it forever - and everything on this house has been by the book, so this shouldn't change. Ironically, the dropped kerb probably would not be something on a buyer's list to check, but it would be on my conscience that they may have a serious issue on their hands. Also, under the latest laws, it would be incumbent on me to disclose dodginess to the seller anyway - which is something I would do.

So on balance, glad it worked out this way, even if dealing with the council was awful.

[Harry Flashman]

Doofus said:

I always find it amusing that people think it's necessary to paint "SLOW" on the roads in London.

You'd be surprised at how fast nutters drive down residential roads here. Not that such writing is any deterrent.

We deliberately picked out street for not being a thoroughfare. Still occasionally see people hooning down it, towards a blind bend where it narrows to one car width...

[Harry Flashman]

okgo said:

When do you do come to sell, as you well know, you'll be getting buyers that will be looking at far less imposing properties in more expensive areas, so I think having a driveway of note that's nicely done and future proof with EV etc is a huge boon.

Very perceptive! Houses round here are being bought by Dulwich/Balham folk coming from £1.5-2m terraces, who want easy access to the many Dulwich private schools, but more space and a proper garden. We actually have had notes dropped through the door very recently asking if we want to sell.

London property is a bit bonkers, really. This house would buy us a proper mansion and land in a nicer part of the country. Maybe one day!

[Harry Flashman]

Now that is the right attitude!!

[Harry Flashman]

Low ground clearance sports car parking problem solved!

This really has been a first world problem, if I have to be critical of myself. I tell myself that this was all for future proofing the house, increasing value, making it have more kerb appeal.

But that little spoiled voice inside has also been moaning about not having an easy place for this old girl to be housed.

Time to count my blessings, rather than moan, on reflection.






So, that nice new dropped kerb and crossover? It was all going so well...

... Until they painted the line outside the wrong driveway.



I mean, at least it's still at our address, rather than some random neighbour. This seems to partially demonstrate why my council appears to haemorrhage money, at any rate.

Edited by Harry Flashman on Thursday 3rd February 19:58

[Harry Flashman]

MrJuice said:

Let's see the whole thing please. In and out. Thanks

Sure. Hard thing to photo without a proper wide angle lens, actually.

Both entrances. Sorry about the distortion from wide mode on the phone. Makes next door look like a castle!. You can just see the two entrances to the drive. The bit between the driveways (where you see my Merc in the pic above) is 8m, the total width of the plot is 16.5m. Three large cars go on the drive easily, four would fit if you were willing to park on the path between the postman's gate (on the far left of the frontage, next to the first double car gate) and the front door. This is unusual for the location, and due to the wide nature of our plot.

IMG_20220119_114110 by baconrashers, on Flickr

The other dropped kerb/pavement is old and not as nice as the new one:

IMG_20220119_114141 by baconrashers, on Flickr

You can drive a car in one and out of the other, but only the bit of the driveway in front of the garage is paved, the rest is gravel. So it doesn't look like a carriage drive, particularly.

IMG_20220119_114036 by baconrashers, on Flickr

A clearer photo taken a while back.:

20200403_133428 by baconrashers, on Flickr

Edited by Harry Flashman on Wednesday 19th January 15:13

[Harry Flashman]

Blocks look a lot easier than tarmac, takes less specialism, and is less disruptive. Far less equipment needed, even if materials cost is higher. Any old builder can lay blocks.

All new dropped drives here are done in block
With our council, this will be a cost thing, not a quality thing. Happily for me, it looks nicer than tarmac, so I'm just fine with it!

It was a private contractor anyway, so they will be doing the cheapest deal the council can get, and the council will be then be making as much margin as they can from me. I watched them lay it. Didn't use a concrete base though (would have taken an extra day or two whilst it set), unlike the excellent folk who did my drive, so it will move over time.