I’m keeping well out of it, @Philippa. Not my department. One of our neighbours approached him asking about tree demolition and they swapped numbers. Since it’s a neighbour I don’t particularly care for, I said nowt.
He's probably into gate grinding as well. Are you saying @Tidemark that he got this in through the gate, but somehow it had got bigger and it wouldn't come out?
We checked on the CCTV. His pal brought it in through the gate and left him to get on with the job. The job did not involve digging up parts of the area around the gate, only the stumps, but he got the chipper teeth stuck in there too and softened the soil a fair bit. When it was time to go, he approached the gate at an angle, on soft ground, the whole machine tilted to one side, he kept going forwards and got it well and truly stuck. It was finally dislodged by the application of a tow rope to his lorry, those long plank jobs that people use to get cars out of sand hills, and my husbands screamed imprecations for him to go slowly and keep the ……. thing straight.
What a squeaky clean Government we seem to have. First the anti-corruption minister has to resign and is now 'in discussion' with authorities in Bangladesh about alleged activities of family members. Now the 'Homelessness' minister has to resign after it became public that she refused to extend a tenancy and then upped the rent by several hundred pounds before letting the property again.
@KT53, I've just read two books on the trot about gov corruption here - Cuckooland by Tom Burgis and Good Chaps by Simon Kuper. Unravelling the tentacles is a feat of journalism. The really interesting thing is in most countries with corrupt govs, that spreads down through society, first to local officials and then to other state employees and gradually any transaction requires a bung or a favour. But here, it is almost exclusively happens in gov. London is the world's premier money laundering location, but apart from odd pockets of corruption in local councils (favours, contracts, etc), British people almost never encounter a situation in which they are required to pay a bribe.
That's an interesting statement and I wonder if it is a political angle construed by the source that you saw it on. I heard, on the radio, that she had given the tenants the requisite notice as she wanted to sell the property but said they can stay, at the same rent, until it was sold. Whilst she was trying to sell it those tenants moved out. She, eventually, was unable to sell so decided to give it an upgrade (how much or how little, I don't have the faintest idea) and then put it back on the rental market. That, of course, doesn't excuse increasing the rent by a massive £700 per month!
What a bl**dy saga @Tidemark . Perhaps the neighbour will be luckier, but you're probably hoping they won't! I know the feeling. I keep hoping something like that will happen to the ignorant pleb across the back from me. Someone had obviously broken down and left their car outside his front gate, where 'madam' usually parks. Bet she gave him grief and ordered him to go round to the owner - who is also a clown. I've yet to see him wearing a seat belt, but I have seen him driving past my house while shaving...
Your ears must have been burning @hailbopp! I was just about to message you to see if you were ok after the storm as I hadn't seen any posts by you over the last few days, and then I saw your post here. Hoe you didn't get too much damage.
I too heard the "Homeless Minister" item on the radio ( yesterday maybe ? ) but it only gave the bare essentials ie she required her existing tenants to leave as she wished to sell the property. Once they left, she upped the rent and advertised it To Let again. There was no mention of the details/reasons which @shiney mentions. Apart from anything else, the rental increase seems exorbitant unless it had remained the same for decades. Haven't heard anything further other than her claim that her actions were entirely within the current laws but whether she decided to resign or was "pushed" remains unclear.
