Ramsgate reader Pete writes:We have a car parked outside our house. It isn't ours and it doesn't belong to any of our neighbours. Somebody who lives elsewhere has parked it there. It's quite a nice car so they have set the alarm. But the alarm is faulty. It goes off intermittently throughout the day and night. It's been doing this since Sunday night.
I phoned the police. They have access to the registration details and can contact the owner. However, they tell me they have no powers to make the owner turn the alarm off. They gave me a number to ring for TDC's environmental protection team.
The number they gave me took me to an answerphone message saying that this number was now defunct. It told me that TDC only works during office hours (in my experience they don't do much then, either). The call was then diverted to a call centre run by Amiscus Horizon in Sittingbourne. A cheery chap on the end of the line told me that TDC doesn't provide any service for dealing with noise complaints out of hours. He told me that I would need to make repeated complaints to the Council and that, eventually, they might issue some kind of enforcement notice to the owner. I'm assuming the battery on the car will have gone flat before this happens.
I'm just wondering what happened to the jack-booted militia who were all set to confiscate our stereos and ghetto-blasters. I was under the impression that Councils were supposed to enforce the legislation which had been introduced to deal with noisy neighbours. Just wait until the unwashed serving classes find out that they can crank up the volume and that granny next-door can do nothing about it. The Millionaires' Playground will soon become the Rappers' Playpen.
P.S. We have to create employment in Thanet, so we contract out answering the phone to a chap in Sittingbourne. Presumably nobody on the dole in Thanet is qualified to answer a phone?
Well Pete, I find the flying poodles pretty annoying at this time of year too, what with all their, er, 'fighting' at four in the morning. So I've taken to kipping in a pair of industrial strength ear defenders. Maybe TDC could save the dosh they spend on providing non-services by issuing a couple of pairs free to every household?
36 comments:
I have a special technique for shutting up car alarms. First, make sure your own car is at least 100 ft. away from the offending vehicle.......
The easiest way to deal with these pains is check the tax, if out of date e-mail details to the DVLA. If all is order, you can always put a notice on it "for Sale £100 ono, ring 078685463" then contact the Council and complain about unlicensed street selling!
Dear Pete,
If you contact the council out of hours emergency calls are sent through to Amicus who action them on the councils behalf. With regard to noise complaints we run a service on tues -thurs 7pm to 11pm and fri-sat 9pm to 2am to respond to calls from customers with ongoing problems and they contact us direct through a mobile number supplied to them.
If it is a house alarm/car alarm then the customers can ring it through as an emergency to Amicus who will then pass it on to the call out officer if during the above times. If it is extremely loud (three or more premises ring in) or the Police require assistance we will also respond during those times.
This service is designed to respond to ongoing problems where we have established a possible recurring problem.
As you may be aware Community Safety ran a trial noise car for two weeks at the end of June with the Police where they responded to all calls received. The results of this are being collated by Community Safety & the initial visits have been followed up by Environmental Health.
If Pete would contact me direct I will pursue his complaint with the appropriate channels.
Chris Wells
Cabinet Member TDC Community Services cllr-Chris Wells [cllr-Chris.Wells@thanet.gov.uk]
See whether you can get at the battery leads from underneath and crop one. Otherwise torch it.
Chris, they don't want a service because if it works they will have nothing to complain about. Life revolves around complaining, rubbishing the TDC and calling the Kent Police unflattering names. It is what passes for recreation in parts of Thanet.
People get upset when they feel alienated and powerless when they see their elected officials decide policies which affect their lives in negative way. In case you haven't noticed Kent is a Tory County with Thanet's forgotten underclass ignored. Can you wonder why people get annoyed. Being patronising doesn't help either. TDC policies which include Westwood Cross and the current debacle on the Pleasurama site don't make for pleasing reading. Motto for TDC could be "Never admit you are wrong and never apologise" Try to understand why people get upset and don't just dismiss them as troublemakers. I will say that the decision to take the old Motor Museum off the market is wonderful but why did this sale get suggested in the first place. You don't get people's confidence when this outrageous behaviour happens. I suspect the middle classes of Thanet were too much to stand up to. Good for them anyway.
You could try painting the car a nice colour and see if it still makes noise.
So, if I understand Mr. Wells correctly, you can't complain about noise on Sunday or Monday evenings or after 11pm on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Tdc top tip
If you throw a brick through the window, it becomes Kent polices responsibility.
If you bump into it with another vehicle at around 5mph the airbags will inflate and the locks will open, The bonnet catch will then be able to operated and the battery disconnected. This is pure conjecture and should not be attempted without a good lawyer in attendance. A note under the windscreen wipers might be more sociable though....
anon again!
I've learnt some good stuff here, for future use. Of them all, I like the airbag trick the best. Or the For Sale sign.
Does tyre spiking count? A broken bottle under each wheel?
The best one I heard, is that some-one phoned 'rec==et', (near Manston) and had an offending vehicle lifted.
Whatever the 'cure' - prevention is better.
5:19 PM, TDC was Labour when the plans for Westwood Cross were approved, despite the 'Save our Town Centres' campaigners and before the necessary road improvements were in place. Kent being a Tory county has absolutely nothing to do with it save, it is par for the course to first complain and, second, blame the Tories.
My recollection is that every single Tory Councillor, bar one, voted in favour of Westwood Cross. Labour may have promoted the idiotic scheme but the Tories didn't oppose it. The one who didn't vote for it was Frank Batt, and he wasn't made to feel very welcome by his colleagues.
I would blame the Labour council as well but it doesn't seem that the Tories are interested in changing anything. Margate will continue to suffer and building an arts centre which I suspect means very little to local residents as it doesn't provide employment does not help. It must be nice to go home from a well paid council official job and leave behind your conscience. I would love to see Margate rise from the ashes(grin) but sadly a new Dreamland is all it's about for many years.
Quote
"Chris, they don't want a service because if it works they will have nothing to complain about. Life revolves around complaining, rubbishing the TDC and calling the Kent Police unflattering names. It is what passes for recreation in parts of Thanet."
It is admittedly a poor substitute for the press actually reporting facts. For example just a week ago Canterbury Crown Court threw out three charges against Justin True.
The son of the family who used to be neighbouring landowners to the 6th Thanet Gun Range. The family who in 1995 went over the heads of Kent Police to get the gun range closed down.
At the Magistrates Court a few months ago solicitors for Justin began action for abuse of process against Kent Plod.
In 2009 two senior officers, one of them Chief Supt Hogben, deployed in Thanet in unmarked police cars.
Why ?
It was at a time that Chief constable had delegated Hogben to investigate emerging facts about Deal Royal Marines Barracks security 1980s (James Shortt, Jean Bultot etc) and the 6th Thanet Gun Range and which coppers engaged in live fire paramilitary training there. Which off duty Kent copper had fired at Mr True on his JCB etc
All of a sudden last year, as questions about Jean Bultot arose, a decision was taken to drop inquiry and I filed an application for judicial review. At about the time this went "Missing" from the Registry of the Royal Courts of Justice Mr Hogben and Co seemed to be targetting the True family.
Resulting in charges for motoring and fraud offences related to motor insurance.
Justin told the Court that he had been issued up to 80 producers per year ever since his father upset the police in 1995 by closing down the gun range they used off duty.
15 years with up to 80 producers per year.
Who was the rural beat officer involved with that gun range ?
Pc ELEY.
Who died after taking a slap from a train near the closed range in 2008 ?
Pc ELEY
In what case was HM Coroner being kept informed about Deal Barracks and 6th Thanet Gun Range developments (by a member of the public meaning me) Pc ELEY Decd.
So what the tom feck were two senior officers doing giving grief to potential witnesses about paramilitary live fire training condoned by Pc ELEY ?
The recent Crown Court dismissal of charges against a True family member represents the third such event in 15 years. On the second such occasion the Judge admonished Thanet CID and put on record that he expects the issues between the Trues and Kent Police to be resolved by proper authority.
So in apparently malicious prosecutions Kent Plod has wasted about half a million pounds.
Next week (yes ECR sub judice) there will be a case in Canterbury in which Kent Plod failed to take a Victim Impact statement. They were persuaded to do so when I drew one up for the victim and Kent Plod did not like the contents.
The contents are factual. The victim asked for testing of her assailant for anabolic steroids.
Given that Raoul Moat had such a problem and his cries to authority for help were spurned it does seem topical.
Last week I reported Kent Plod to CPS who called on Plod for full copies of the email exchanges and the victim impact statement I drew up which plod refused to file (having for a year failed to draw one up themselves).
The press gagged themselves and all of us are the poorer. Calling Kent plod "Unflattering names" should at least be reported when it is done buy Judges in open court don't you think ?
In the David O'Leary murder case 2008. Yes I got seven complaints against Kent Plod upheld at IPCC. Oooh no press report.
That began a game of IPCC requiring Kent Plod to explain themselves to David's father Dan. And Kent Plod using much jargon like "Proportionate" to avoid making any explanation at all.
As complaint continues the Force Pro Standards has regularly had to forward my information to the murder inquiry team. How come they did not find out for themselves ?
(1) A simple check of the voters list. It shows another man as living at Lydden Lodge with David O'Leary. A John Fisher (still listed as resident). Kent plod say "Who"
(2) A simple check of free internet house sales sites and a check obtaining land registry records. Questions about gifted deposit buy to let purchasing and whether this is a method used in money laundering. Kent Plod say "Wot !"
(3) A power cut at the time of the shooting at Lydden Lodge. Kent Plod inquiries were one question to electricity board to ask if they had a cut. My inquiries were to trace the previous owner and find that there was a long standing earth fault on the electric gates installation. This could trip the house consumer unit up to four times some evenings. If power was restored then all the PIR lamps in the grounds would have illuminated and the taxi driver who had just dropped David home and was turning in gropunds would have had outside lighting to see. So was the power cut the result of someone operating the gates (Kent Plod "Wot?") Did the power cut trigger an alarm ? Was the alarm reset by someone who knew its code ? ("Wot" Wot" "Wot" etc ad naudeum from useless Kent Ploddie plods)
(4) Police assumed there was no theft from Lydden Lodge. We query a matter of property up to the value of £300,000
(5) If the gates were operated had someone got a fob from David's Merc which was in garage for body repair ? Why was Merc not forensically tested ?
(6) What vehiole was David using when his Merc was out of commission. (Kent Plod "Duh") well it seems to have been a Navara Ploddie plods. Was it at Lydden Lodge after the shooting ? or was it somewhere's else ? Was it at Lydden Lodge before the shooting ?
(7) Currently I await a report by a senior officer re my complaint of conspiracy by the murder case officer against the civil process I brought for Dan O'Leary seeking to recover his Rolex watch seized by police at the murder scene (on loan to his sons on rota). Initially Kent Plod refused to record a complaint. My appeal to IPCC was successful and they were ordered to record. Now I await the latest load of denial jargon "Response was proportionate" (What the hell does that mean ... it was proportionate to do nothing ?)
Interesting questions re David O'Leary murder case
(1) Did Kent Police carry out an armed warrant raid on a suspect (later removed from suspect list) ?
(2)Were firearms discovered during that raid ?
(3) Is the subject of that raid related to a member of the former 6th Thanet Gun Range ?
(4) Is another relative of that subject a name which featured in warnings given to Kent Police before the 22.9.89 bombing of Deal Royal Marines Barracks ?
(5) Was the subject of the raid released early from a sentence some years ago after the personal intervention of Irish Nationalist Lord Longford ? And who are numbered amongst his former cell mates ?
Seem to me like reasonable questions to the murder team
Now just what was Chief Super Hogben doing targetting potential witnesses re 6th Thanet Range again ?
Retired, please write a conspiracy novel for your imagination knows no bounds. Why waste your talents on a blog when there is a whole world out there waiting to hear your stories.
Illegal gun ranges, unauthorised cadet organisations, police cover ups, stolen watches. missing persons, it is all there in abundance so get cracking. You could be the next J K Rowling for it all has a ring of make belief wizardry to it.
Retired Rick
You keep at it guy! I'm interested and anyone who cares about our country and justice should be.
A side note: TDC don't seem to me to enforce anything these days.
Planning, noise problems, and car parking. Thanet has become one big car park with people parked on pavements, double yellows, footpaths, clifftops all over the island and the council doing sod-all about it.
I really don't know why TDC don't refer to these pages for solutions to all their problems as the answers to everything are all here. Maybe, though, most of these opinions do not accord with the majority who elect them. Or, just maybe, it doesn't matter a toss who gets elected because the end result is the same.
As to Retired, well if I swallowed that load of codswallop I'd either need to be 'sectioned' or be too scared to go out with all these bent cops and gun toting illegal cadets about. Oh, and I'd bury my Rolex under the floor boards!
lol
"As to Retired...."
But have you considered.......what if he is right?
Who would (or could) make something like this up?
ll:04 PM, living next door to Harry Potter who keeps levitating our cat, I believe most things but Retired must be having a laugh. If the Kent Police were implicated in the things he suggests, from the RM Barracks explosion through deceased coppers to murder cover-ups, it would need to implicate MI5, the government (of changing hues) and the Chief Constable right down to the local CID in Deal and Thanet. Far too many people for it to remain suppressed and to what purpose.
Previously he has labelled cadet instructors as potential perverts without a shred of evidence. Sadly he is off with the fairies but, if it makes him happy, no problem as long as people like you don't start believing it.
By the way, the Esso Garage at Broadstairs Broadway has a large control centre underneath, in what used to be petrol tanks, from which a network of TDC undercover agents spy on what we are all up to. Sometimes you see a man standing on the forecourt in a turned up collar raincoat and a trilby. Then you blink and he has gone so there must be a secret trap door somewhere or, maybe, he has just been beamed down, Scottie style!
Enjoy the weekend for N. Korea is about to nuke the Yanks military exercise in the South.
Bluenote
You have no idea of the real substance behind the evidence...until you do - go back into your nice safe quiet and dark room and be thankful that a lot of good men are protecting yours and this worthless countries arse?
The real Malcolm
Malcolm, I spent twenty years protecting this country, with the medals and scars as proof, so spare me the real men rubbish. Fail to see how perpetually rubbishing the police, and I am not naive enough to think there are no bent coppers, is protecting anything. The point is that for Retired's stories to have any validity, every copper would need to be bent. Hardly feasible!
Really Bluenote then I suggest that you ask one of your close politically Blue friends about "Retired" and his statements.
You and would have signed an act-but you would not know what I have personally witnessed would you - and that gives some substance and creditability to retired comments - and yes like retired I did bring these to the attention of Kent Police and guess what...nothing happened hence my real men comments as real men stand up for democracy and do not hide behind it like the current crop of politicians and civil servants.
End of discussion as you irritate me beyond belief.
Now back in you box there's a good chap!!
12:22PM, OK my aim is not to annoy you and let us suppose that there is substance in Retired's allegations. If that were the case surely there are better ways than simply making unsubstantiated claims on blogspots.
We have a very active media in this country who love sensational stories. They also have some very able investigative journalists. Why not go to them with any evidence you have if you really want to expose your alleged misdeeds.
If I might remind you, the Stephen Lawrence killing was being treated by the police, not without some reason, as just another drug related turf war killing. It was the media who stirred up the allegations of a racially motivated attacks leading to the McPherson report and massive changes throughout the Met. The media have power so use them.
As to your ridiculous dismissal of me, just why should I get back in my box anymore than you. We are all entitled to air our views and if mine offend you then tough. You don't exactly make my day.
I agree with Bluenote, for a change. Retired is always making these claims around the blogs so if he has real evidence contact the press. Time to put up or shut up!
The problem with Retired's claims is that they sound like utter, paranoid fantasy.
I choose my words carefully there, as 'sound' does not necessarily equate with 'are'. He has been proven correct on a number of points in the past. I've personally known many investigative journalists who've sounded like him, and of course many were indeed as mad as a box of frogs, but they nonetheless broke stories which shocked the world. Once they found someone who could understand their stories and translate them into readable English, that is!
"Why not go to them with any evidence you have if you really want to expose your alleged misdeeds."
And the press has done such a good job in bringing Dr. Kelly's killers to justice or exposing the corruption involved in releasing Ali al-Megrahi?
Face it Bluenote; the establishment is very powerful and cover-ups happen all the time. Junior people don't have to be involved they just have to do what they're told. That's why these institutions employ "Yes Men." The last thing they need when they're trying to cover things up is some perky little twit with a brain of his own, asking awkward questions or speaking out of turn.
At least the press keep resurrecting the Dr. Kelly case and calling for a full enquiry. As to the suggestion that the rank and file, presumably of the police, are all 'yes' men is desperately unfair to a lot of very decent coppers.
Unless Retired and his supporters do something about substantiating their allegations they remain fantasy. It is also desperately boring to keep reading them repeated time and again on topics from 'car alarms' to 'night flights.'
I have just seen a cuckoo sitting on a cloud over Thanet which must be a sign of something.
Seriously though, the Kent Police can make a right stuff up of some very basic investigations so how could one expect them to be capable of a cover up of the magnitude suggested by Retired.
ECR could well be right about some truth in there somewhere but the repetition and the extent of the allegations tends to destroy any credibility there might be.
Bluenote
We at last agree on two items the photo of the Turnip centre and your comments.
As to your ridiculous dismissal of me, just why should I get back in my box anymore than you. We are all entitled to air our views and if mine offend you then tough. You don't exactly make my day.
Are you an RO as I am an OR?
8:37am, I am both RO and OR in answer to your query but not a paid up member of the Tory party. I am well to the right of them, especially now!
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