How to deal with Abandoned Vehicles

Continuing the discussion from More wheelie bin annoyance:

Worth moving this into a new topic? It’s not “wheelie” about bins any more…

Report to the Council.

https://www.lewisham.gov.uk/myservices/environment/street-cleaning/abandoned-vehicles/Pages/abandoned-vehicles.aspx

Lewisham has a completely shambolic response to abandoned or illegally parked cars. My own experience has shown that they simply have no idea what they are doing!

We had issues with vehicles being abandoned on our street on a weekly basis a number of years ago. Lewisham took months to remove them. We were advises to call and say that the petrol cap was missing. Collected in two hours. Underhand maybe, effective definitely.

It would be great if one of our Councillors reading this could look into it for us.

Depends on the offence I guess. What sort of illegally parked cars do you mean.?

Londonrz says he paid for parking bays to be reserved for his removals van. But on the day, other vehicles parked in the reserved bays, ignoring the official notices. Why were the offending vehicles not towed?

Londonrz says he was told that Lewisham can’t/won’t do that. But we all know that other Boroughs do tow away offending vehicles. Could a Councillor respond and make enquiries as to why this wouldn’t happen in Lewisham?

Funny though if we look at the Abandoned vehicle policy(it is a PDA attachment) Abandoned vehicle policy updated September 2015(2).pdf (87.6 KB)
via the link in my post.))

Interesting that areas of action include ‘estate access roads’ andveven pricate estates with the owners permission. Shame Lewisham Homes have not read it?

They were messing around with us, that is for sure.

This Vauxhall hatchback has been at the bottom of Bird-in-Hand Passage, beside the metal fence that borders the railway line and blocking the path that leads to the station, for around six weeks. We’ve complained to Gallions, who are responsible for most of the flats in Phoenix works, who haven’t a clue what to do about it and don’t know who it belongs to. We’ve spoken to the parking control company they use who’ve told us they can’t do anything about it because they can’t trace the owner (seriously? They seem pretty good at doing that when it comes to issuing tickets). We know that it’s not a public highway so that seems to preclude going to the police or the council but any ideas on how to remove this eyesore would be welcome.

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I think you can ask DVLA who owns this vehicle. It may have been stolen and abandoned there.

Also it is illegal to park on a London pavement. there may be an offence being committed.

There is a mini which was abandoned in the flats on Church Vale 3 weeks ago, the police attended as somebody then broke into it smashing the windows (police found baseball bat in bins) yet even though the police know it is there nothing has been done.

If the petrol cap is reported as missing it will be removed ASAP. Just saying

Is there a car made anytime after 1990 that doesn’t have the petrol cap attached?

Not sure I follow?

'Duh. Was thinking the cap actually had to be missing to report it as such. Gotcha.

I’ve just checked and the black Vauxhall is untaxed and has no MOT.

You could report it using the below link, although the chances are it will be clamped rather than removed:

Is the land private? If so then tax and MOT are moot, right?

Ah yes you’re right

Only if reg as SORN.

I’m guessing bar illegal activity you would need to determine who owns the land, and then convince them to act. If that is Gallion, and you’re not getting satisfaction from the local resident’s office then try raising the complaint higher?

Or you could report it to the council and make it clear the petrol cap is missing.

I’m pretty certain that when I didn’t walk past this morning the petrol cap was missing - but I could be mistaken

Funny, on the two occasions I did this I was mistaken as well. But, the vehicle was removed which was nice of them.

Gosh my mind was fuzzy this morning. I could see from the comfort of my home office that the petrol cap was clearly missing. What a hazard.

There you go!

Thanks All. Ahem, yes it’s a Vauxhall. Have reported it to the council - although I have my doubts about whether they’ll intervene. Have also reported it for being unlicensed and no MOT.

Pleased to report the car disappeared overnight.

There’s 2 abandoned cars in the road - which is quite annoying as there are also several skips and up to 4 builders vans at the moment as well. I’ve checked and both appear to be taxed until next year - one has clearly been in a crash and the other has been clamped (by the DVLA?). Can I report them as abandoned to lewisham ? I cant get the lewisham council website link to work - it goes to an error message

I’ve had luck with other issues like fly tipping and broken traffic lights on fixmystreet.com - would recommend that. The probably have a ‘tag’ for abandoned vehicles.

When I worked in the relevant department several years ago I was told that the Council could not remove a vehicle that was still taxed.
The skips need to be licensed and lamped at night.

In the light of number plates being cloned for criminal activity, eg catalytic converter theft, I wonder if the police could check with the registered owners to see if these really are their cars?

if they’re taxed i don’t think you can report them as abandoned as mentioned. Unless they are blocking access or have been vandalised.

Apparently cars reported with missing fuel caps are dealt with swiftly. Just saying!

They might have been stolen and just left in your road.
It is worth checking this, if you can.

Tempting … but for hidden cctv and dashcams.

But as mentioned above, at a glance, it can be easy to mistake whether a fuel cap is missing or not. There’s nothing saying it actually has to be missing - just reported as such…

Exactly! A few years ago, when scrap values were so low you had to pay to scrap a car, Waldenshaw Road was blighted by many cars being abandoned and their owners then hopping on a train.

An individual connected to the council mentioned the fuel cap situation. The vehicles were removed within 24 hours. A good few times my eyesight must have failed me because I was sure there were no fuel caps

If a business owner advertises two cars for sale within 500 metres of each other, the Council might remove it/them.

Unfortunately when we had a car dumped outside our house a while back we discovered that LBC’s stated policy at section 6.22 of the Parking Regs is not to remove even illegally parked vehicles. The police suggested that LBC should send a letter to the registered owner which would have discovered whether it was cloned or stolen but they wouldn’t even do that.
After it had been there for 18 months, gently rotting away, we got lucky when a couple of guys who looked most unlike the council operatives they claimed to be knocked on ours and a few neighbours doors to see if we knew the owner and then hauled it onto their beaten up lorry and drove off.
I remember years ago there used to be a guy around here who raced “bangers” and looked out for dumped cars he could use so they might have been doing something similar.