Woman wars with council for parking on her personal driveway – she blames neighbours

A woman who has been served a council order to remove vehicles parked on her property has slammed the notice as “pathetic”.

Jenny Cummings who lives at Grey House Farm in St Brides Wentloodge, Wales, now faces challenging the order in court.

The 44-year-old moved into the property, which is set on three acres of farm land in February 2021 with her husband and two of their children. She believes initial renovations triggered the issue, reports WalesOnline.

READ MORE: ‘Selfish’ woman wants to park camper van outside neighbour’s house for months

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She said: “When we first moved in we wanted to renovate and put an extension.

“We had planning, health and safety etc out and it was all fine. We moved into a property three years ago and had problems with our neighbours, who have reported us to the council.”

Jenny said the issues have escalated and resulted in she and her husband being given an enforcement order by Newport City Council asking them to stop parking vehicles they use for their vehicle recovery company on their driveway.

She said the council is accusing the couple of operating the vehicle recovery firm from their home, but she says this has never been the case.

“We generally park two vehicles – sometimes a truck, sometimes a van – from the recovery company,” she said. “They are the size of vans, not huge HGVs, which we would actually have room for [in our driveway].

“We’ve been told it is because my husband goes out at all hours of night. Now and again there might be a job that comes in between 7 and 7am, but it is only my husband and son running it so there aren’t many of those jobs.

“The council say they think we are running a business. We have tried to explain to them we aren’t and just park the vehicles here sometimes – does a plumber not take his car home if he gets an emergency job?”

Jenny said the order also requests she remove a small set of floodlights that light up apple trees, take down a single CCTV camera installed after the home was vandalised, remove a small storage cabin in the corner of their land, and to move an unused children’s swing.

But Jenny hasn’t complied and doesn’t think her family are doing anything wrong.

She said.” ”We don’t believe we are doing anything wrong. We aren’t running a business, the camera is there for protection, that cabin is tucked away in a corner and not harming anyone. We think it’s stupid to take the floodlights down.”

Jenny said they are due to appear in court on May 23 for non-compliance with the council notice, which could result in prosecution. Despite this, she said they will not be complying.

She said they could have appealed the notice but that she did not do so as her grandson had just been born at the time and it “wasn’t a top priority,” adding: “In our minds it is pathetic.”

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