Unauthorised playground in Knowsley leaves council puzzled https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyxjx66j0no
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I definitely feel it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission with this sort of thing, council fear of litigation definitely stops a lot of good things from getting off the ground.
Back in lockdown I was part of a little composting/grow your own collective, nothing formal just sharing advice and resources. And we did a little workshop on a local estate to see if anyone wanted a composter or raised beds or anything. And it turned out they didn't but what they did want was a community noticeboard next to the bus stop.
So we thought no problem, post, bit of concrete, a few boards and some perspex, we can do that. But then we made the mistake of asking the council, who said it would be £800 to cover legal liabilities if it fell on someone and ongoing yearly costs, and we needed a formal incorporated structure to do it. So we didn't, and I still feel bad about letting those people down. I wish we'd just done it in the night and pled ignorance if someone eventually noticed.
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So we thought no problem, post, bit of concrete, a few boards and some perspex, we can do that. But then we made the mistake of asking the council, who said it would be £800 to cover legal liabilities if it fell on someone and ongoing yearly costs, and we needed a formal incorporated structure to do it. So we didn't, and I still feel bad about letting those people down. I wish we'd just done it in the night and pled ignorance if someone eventually noticed.
@afewbugs yeah… I think jus do good stuff and don’t ask for permission. Politicians can always be shamed for opposing good stuff after all.
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@afewbugs yeah… I think jus do good stuff and don’t ask for permission. Politicians can always be shamed for opposing good stuff after all.
@JimmyB yes I'm hoping this is how this will play out, it will look too bad in the media for the council to remove this playground
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@JimmyB yes I'm hoping this is how this will play out, it will look too bad in the media for the council to remove this playground
@afewbugs well good for you!
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@afewbugs well good for you!
@afewbugs just realised - the playground was another project, not yours, right?
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So we thought no problem, post, bit of concrete, a few boards and some perspex, we can do that. But then we made the mistake of asking the council, who said it would be £800 to cover legal liabilities if it fell on someone and ongoing yearly costs, and we needed a formal incorporated structure to do it. So we didn't, and I still feel bad about letting those people down. I wish we'd just done it in the night and pled ignorance if someone eventually noticed.
@afewbugs I wish people felt more empowered to just get on with things, there's a couple of things to do with the waterway near me that we could ask thames water about...or they could Just Happen one night
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@afewbugs just realised - the playground was another project, not yours, right?
@JimmyB yes that was someone else, other side of the country
But they definitely had the right idea -
So we thought no problem, post, bit of concrete, a few boards and some perspex, we can do that. But then we made the mistake of asking the council, who said it would be £800 to cover legal liabilities if it fell on someone and ongoing yearly costs, and we needed a formal incorporated structure to do it. So we didn't, and I still feel bad about letting those people down. I wish we'd just done it in the night and pled ignorance if someone eventually noticed.
@afewbugs Reminds me of the guerrilla highway sign in Los Angeles. I think 99% Invisible did a story about it a couple of years back.
The Fake Freeway Sign that Became a Real Public Service
An artist uses a freeway as his canvas, all in the name of public good. The freeway sign arrived in Los Angeles five days after...
Good.is (www.good.is)
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So we thought no problem, post, bit of concrete, a few boards and some perspex, we can do that. But then we made the mistake of asking the council, who said it would be £800 to cover legal liabilities if it fell on someone and ongoing yearly costs, and we needed a formal incorporated structure to do it. So we didn't, and I still feel bad about letting those people down. I wish we'd just done it in the night and pled ignorance if someone eventually noticed.
@afewbugs We're having a similar problem in our neighborhood. We actually had a really nice notice board at our local park, but a novice Semi-truck driver got lost on our neighborhood streets and backed over it. The city has no funds for low-priority items like this and prohibits us from fixing it ourselves.
One of these days I'm just going to go down there and throw up a new one myself and damn the consequences.
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R relay@relay.infosec.exchange shared this topic
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So we thought no problem, post, bit of concrete, a few boards and some perspex, we can do that. But then we made the mistake of asking the council, who said it would be £800 to cover legal liabilities if it fell on someone and ongoing yearly costs, and we needed a formal incorporated structure to do it. So we didn't, and I still feel bad about letting those people down. I wish we'd just done it in the night and pled ignorance if someone eventually noticed.
@afewbugs When it comes to work in the community, it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission.
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So we thought no problem, post, bit of concrete, a few boards and some perspex, we can do that. But then we made the mistake of asking the council, who said it would be £800 to cover legal liabilities if it fell on someone and ongoing yearly costs, and we needed a formal incorporated structure to do it. So we didn't, and I still feel bad about letting those people down. I wish we'd just done it in the night and pled ignorance if someone eventually noticed.
@afewbugs I think £800 for that is insurer-speak for "go away". At that premium, you'd think getting crushed by a notice board was a weekly occurrence! I don't drive, but from what I can tell, that's already about double the typical yearly premium for car insurance, and those do routinely injure people.
I wish there was some way of escaping this deadlock, perhaps giving local councils the ability to make long-term investments, which are then used to self-insure against these one-in-a-million events like death by notice board. Requiring the services of private sector insurance firms for the most basic of public facilities isn't a practical way of going about things
