Damaged Car on Dartmouth Road

Any info on this damaged possibly abandoned car?

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Has been there more than a week, so much for 30 minute parking enforcement.

It’s been there two weeks at least

ben there ages

Stolen and abandoned I think.

Not listed as stolen at the moment, it’s taxed and has a valid MOT but no insurance.

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Lewisham are useless at abandoned vehicles.

There was a car at the end of Worsley Bridge Road with flat types and smashed wing mirrors and eventually windows that made the junction difficult, and that was there for around a year.

There’s a smashed and abandoned moped on Como Road, and I’ve been told that will be there until at least August when the road tax runs out.

There’s a dilapidated car with flat tyres badly parked at the Perry Hill end of Houston road taking up 2 spaces which some desperate neighbour put signs on asking for it to be moved, but it’s clearly abandoned and going nowhere.

I did fill in the crime survey and rate abandoned vehicles a bit higher, but I’m not sure how quickly that will improve any outlook.

The one thing I do know is that if the vehicle is torched, as has happened around here in the past, the remains are picked up reasonably promptly. I would however prefer a more proactive response from the council to these nuisances.

Made me laugh about the parking enforcement (or lack of) too!

I reported it on Fix My Street on 15/2 and got an update to say the call has been assigned to the Lewisham Council abandoned vehicles team to investigate.

When I worked in the depot the staff told me they cannot touch a vehicle that still has valid road tax.

Hilarious and sad that the council is too scared to tow the vehicle. Reading online - it should be an easy process. You legally have to try and find the owner. If you find them, you have to give them 7 days notice before you dispose of it. If you can’t find them, you don’t have to give notice.

To decide if a vehicle is abandoned you only have to satisfy some basic criteria which this vehicle clearly meets (this is all on the gov website). It does not matter if the vehicle is still taxed!!!

I thought there might be a legal grey area but nope. Lewisham Council is just a disgrace. All they would have to do is pay the disposal cost. I understand that they might never recover it. But… Come on…on Google it states the cost to scrap a car is a couple hundred pounds.

Council priorities need to be changed. I understand they want to waste all our money on unsustainable housing but the rate payers deserve a basic level of service.

I have noticed a vehicle left on Derby Hill Crescent with a nice silver covering. Perhaps this is an option for abandoned cars, we could place a cover on them with a message or advertising for shops on Dartmouth Road and a few plant pots on top.

Perhaps we should organise a community event to push/tow/hotwire these cars and park them up outside Laurence House…

There’s now a sticker saying set for removal or destruction

What app/website is that from, Nivag?

It’s called Total Car Check, you’ll need to register for free to get the info I posted.

Hi all, apologies for the delayed response to this thread. Just as a quick update, I reported this vehicle on the 26th February and this is the response I received from Kevin Lewis at Lewisham Council:

'Dear Cllr Gibbons

Thank you for your recent email in regards to an abandoned vehicle registration SV55ZTC.

We had this vehicle reported to us via Love Lewisham as abandoned. As a result of which we visited the location on Monday 25th February 19 and placed an advisory 7-day abandoned vehicle notice on the vehicle. If the vehicle is still at the location on the Monday 4th March 19, it will be removed by our contractor as abandoned’

I very much appreciate Councillor Gibbons responding here.

A question I would like answered is - why is it ever necessary for a councillor (or any resident) to get involved in something like this? The car is in a parking bay with a 30 minute limit. Why wasn’t this picked up as a matter of routine by parking enforcement officers?

I don’t think it was necessary for Councillor Gibbons to get involved but it is good that he gave us the update.

The main action here was by Courtsider reporting it on FixMyStreet on the 15th. This automatically forwarded the issue to Lewisham Council and they acknowledged/owned it on the 18th. It took them a week to send somebody out to investigate and on the 25th they did, put a sticker on it and gave a week’s notice for removal. After this our local councillor reported it and the council said it was in hand. Full marks to Courtsider and FixMyStreet for getting it started.

While that account of clockwork handling is encouraging and good progress on this case, it is not exemplary of elsewhere in the postcode.

My experience and there are many other cases that languish after being reported, usually until the road tax & mot run out. By way of example, there was a car parked annoyingly close to the junction at the end of Worsley Bridge Road a few years back and it was pretty well damaged. It took a year to remove:

https://www.fixmystreet.com/report/751871

Just asking out of intetest…does anyone know when the local Police patrol Dartmouth Road?

I assume the absence of a reply means that the answer is NEVER.

Not seen any police patrols for months. Also it was reassuring to at least get updated on here from them and our local councillors.

I often see our local constabulary provide updates on their patrols on Twitter.

For example…

Why was the car never issued a parking ticket?

There’s often more on Lewisham’s website about what they won’t do than they will do:

“We do not carry out wheel clamping and we do not remove illegally parked vehicles.”

As we have come to expect, THERE IS NO EXPLANATION

Thank you. That explains it…I rarely do Twitter.

About police patrols. I understand the Government has cut the funding for policing by £10 billion.

Can we keep national political points in the opt-in General Politics category please