Council orders pensioner to destroy community garden he spent his savings on

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/11715768/Council-orders-pensioner-to-destroy-garden-he-spent-life-savings-on.html

Council orders pensioner to destroy garden he spent life savings on

Jam Imani Rad spent thousands of pounds on a community garden for his neighbours to enjoy - now, he's been told to pull it down


http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03363/69552723_Pictured-_3363580b.jpg



A pensioner from Preston in Lancashire has been ordered to dig up the community garden he planted in front of his block of flats. Retired teacher Jam Imani Rad, 65, paid a professional gardener to rejuvenate a patch of urban land turning it into a glorious green space - and spent over £5,000 of his savings on the project. Installing statues, trellises and pathways to the space outside his home in Preston, he says he wanted his neighbours to enjoy their environment.

Now, he has been told to return the space to its previous run-down state, after failing to obtain permission from the housing association. Mr Rad said that his intention was to build something beautiful, and "show that pensioners can make a positive contribution and don't need to sit there watching TV all day." "All my neighbours love it," he added, before admitting that his garden had developed into more than he was given permission for. He denies that the project has caused a nuisance. "The material was outside my house for six months and not once during that time did anyone from Community Gateaway ask me to stop."

Gateway claims that Mr Rad was approached when he carried out work in 2012, and that he has reneged on an agreement not to build further.
A spokeman said: "We have been working closely with the customer for a number of years to resolve issues surrounding the development of the communal gardens. "In 2012 customers raised concerns about the work that Mr Rad had carried out to the communal gardens." A Change.org petition has been set up (https://www.change.org/p/community-gateway-association-retract-their-decision-for-jam-imani-rad-to-destroy-the-community-garden/) to petition Preston Lancashire Community Gateway Association to retract its decision. 'Let common sense prevail and leave this beautiful oasis were [sic] it is' said one supporter.

Well i'm sure the usual little man sufferers on here will reply "wa wa against da wulessss section a paragraphy 107.6" but who cares. The fact is that stories like this go and show how absurd this country is, where everything is upside down to those in power: where the good are punished for good deeds and pesecuted by the state and the bad are either ignored or outright rewarded by the state.

Time and time again you hear stories of people doing good deeds, something the council is incapable of like cutting the grass more than twice a year due to spending their budgets on global warming advisors advertised in the Guardian, and they come up against the most absurd rulings and meddling you can imagine. I remember one story a while back of some old ladies who decided to plant some daffodils and flowers on their village roundabout to brighten the place up - only to be halted by the Nazis in the council and old to wear hi-viz and hard hats.

It's the same message that government programmes for naugthy little ***** in state schools get - like in my school where the bad kids were treated to a free trip and the rest of us got **** all - the message is why the **** bother to even try and be nice, do well or behave. It's time for Quality before Equality.

Never underestimate the ability of a busybody to stamp all over someone else's productive, and in this case quite harmless behaviour, to justify their own inactivity.


Having worked many years in the public sector, this does not surprise me. Many council officials are quasi-communists intent on controlling as much as they can to build little empires to justify their existence.

If anything demonstrates the positive (and efficient) way that comunities and individuals can be a positive influence for change withiut going through them, they will try and crush it. They are parasites.


Miserable little jobsworths. They'd have insisted on a risk assessment before sending small boats to Dunkirk.

Thoughts? And what is the betting that this is a Labour council?

[FlyingJesus]

lol unlucky prob shouldn't have knowingly gone against the agreements made with the council as if that cost 5k anyway it's a £200 B&Q job

[-:Undertaker:-]

lol unlucky prob shouldn't have knowingly gone against the agreements made with the council as if that cost 5k anyway it's a £200 B&Q job

Well you haven't surprised me, nor with the sneering at a guy who can't afford much but who has made a little patch of unkempt grass a nice little garden.

If you or the council had any sense, you'd come to realise not only the social benefits of allowing people to go ahead with little schemes like this in that it tidies up an area from an overgrown ugly patch to a little paradise and makes people proud of an area that has very little, but also of the cost benefits in that if you simply just left him alone you'd not have to cut the grass twice a year anymore or weed the place, you'd not have to spend money on court orders and countless letters and agreements back and forth. But common sense clearly doesn't come into it with you which is why you'd be perfect for a job in authority.

If the council really wants to meddle, why doesn't it leave this good guy alone and pester the scum who leave their council property gardens a disgraceful mess.

[Sian]

Who cares if he didn't have permission, he's no doubt brightened up that Street!

[GommeInc]

Too late now for their decision. Housing Associations are stupid anyway, if his neighbours like it then their job has been satisfied. A bunch of faceless associates who are ignoring who they represent should reconsider what they've said, as they're the only ones having trouble with it. Good on him for improving an area the Council is too lazy and tight to fix.

[Chippiewill]

What an idiot, if you don't get permission don't start it - he was told he didn't have permission and did it anyway.

If he doesn't like it then he should have lived somewhere that doesn't have a housing association. It's a communal space anyway so he doesn't have any leg to stand on.

[FlyingJesus]

Well you haven't surprised me, nor with the sneering at a guy who can't afford much but who has made a little patch of unkempt grass a nice little garden.

I lit said that just because you were complaining about it before it was even said and knew it would get a spitting and spluttering response. Do I get to be debates manager now?


If you or the council had any sense, you'd come to realise not only the social benefits of allowing people to go ahead with little schemes like this in that it tidies up an area from an overgrown ugly patch to a little paradise and makes people proud of an area that has very little, but also of the cost benefits in that if you simply just left him alone you'd not have to cut the grass twice a year anymore or weed the place, you'd not have to spend money on court orders and countless letters and agreements back and forth. But common sense clearly doesn't come into it with you which is why you'd be perfect for a job in authority.

If you or the hand-wringers had any sense you'd realise that there were clearly reasons that he was denied permission to go ahead with these plans and that a few pretty little flowers aren't worth whatever problems there obviously were with his designs. If laws don't have to be followed because of subjective aesthetic reasons and idiots tutting about freedoms that don't exist then there's no point in having laws, but as usual you're flip-flopping between supporting legal actions based on social morality and condemning it


they're the only ones having trouble with it

Nope.
"...In 2012 customers raised concerns about the work that Mr Rad had carried out to the communal gardens."

[RyRy]

guy does nice things for community and council tells him to get rid of it

now imagine this

banksy draws one of his sketches on his house

i wonder what the council would do................... bunch of suited nonces who only care about themselves, not about the people they house.

housing association? more like shafting association.

[FlyingJesus]

Banksy's a nonce and all

[Empired]

lmfao one of the women down a road near mine (I know one of her kids) got fined after she mowed the lawn on all the grass verges down her street because the council hadn't had them cut in months and they looked awful

it reached the papers but I can't find the story anywhere on the internet which is annoying and I can't remember what happened in the end

[GommeInc]

Nope.
"...In 2012 customers raised concerns about the work that Mr Rad had carried out to the communal gardens."
I want to know what it looked like before. Having read a proper article about it, he was denied permission and quite a substantial number did complain about it. I don't think the council have helped themselves (or the association) by saying he can leave it as it was when they made the complaint. No man in their right mind likes leaving something half-finished.

There are quite a few photos of the garden and it doesn't exactly scream "community". It looks like it comes with quite a few terms and conditions on where to walk, what to touch, where to sit and simply doesn't seem as communal as it should really be. What he should have done is made it into a community project.