The Battle of the Bollard - When Cars Matter More Than People

Photo Copyright Janet Cameron

Another story of just how mean people can be when their sense of personal entitlement is challenged.

It took four years of cars parking across a lower ground floor flat entrance, a change of house agent, four months of dedicated wrangling and around 200 emails, to ensure a resident could rely on proper access to her home.

The quarrel between the owner of Flat 1 in a conversion building in Brighton, East Sussex, and the other six owners in the villa became so heated, that she was told:

"You are being very selfish. You have to think about people needing to park their cars."

How many people would be willing to allow parked cars to obstruct them from entering their home?  Or unfazed at not being able to get their possessions up to ground level?

Apart from this was the added difficulty of having visitors who might be disabled. Once such a visitor arrived and had great difficulty getting down to the front door. Having to manipulate your body around vehicles in order to enter your home seems a gross imposition, apart from the ugly appearance presented by the crazy parking.

When the resident first moved in, there were two parking spaces only - the rest of the rights of way in the drive belonged to the next-door conversion - and these were available on a first come / first serve basis.  Later tenants arrived with much larger cars, and the two spaces extended to the space in front of the steps to the two lower ground flats. A few derisory measures were taken, appealing to people by word of mouth and email. 

After about three years of this nuisance, a sign saying "No Cars Beyond This Point" was erected, but it had little effect.  The entrance, which led down around ten steps continued to be blocked. At times, there was no possibility of accepting a delivery, or taking a shopping trolley down the steps and certainly not a bicycle.

This was also a safety hazard, since having to manipulate around the cars meant it wasn't easy to grab onto the safety handrail in order to descend.

It would seem that there would be no problem in installing a bollard for the safety of the owner. The argument was that the size of the cars would mean only one could park on the drive. Despite this, the managing agent strongly recommended that the problem should be finally solved by this means, and agreed that appealing to people's good nature simply didn't work. 

Eventually, after much wrangling, the erection of the bollard was agreed - with great reluctance.

Attempts were made to make the owner of the flat pay for the bollard - in spite of the fact it was two other owners and their visitors who had actually caused the problem.

The bollard cost £130. This sum, divided by six, amounted to around £22 each, so that one woman would have the right to enter the home she owned without hindrance.