Driven to distraction over Cobo eyesores
Wednesday 23rd February 2011, 11:30AM GMT.
ABANDONED cars are back at the west coast.
About 14 cars have been abandoned in the middle car park at Cobo, leaving shoppers and visitors again struggling to park.
Cobo Village Centre owner Ralph Le Page said people were taking advantage of doubts over ownership of the land.
He suspected vehicles were being stored for parts, possibly by smaller commercial garages. Some had been transported there on breakdown lorries, others had flat tyres or no wheels and smashed windows.
The Castel constables declined to comment.
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Hey why not just do a compulsory purhase. It would surely be cheaper than the legal costs of figuring out who owns it a!
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I would like to know why it is not illegal to abandone a vehicle any where, but it is illegal to remove it? In this particular case. if this Guy says he owns the place then where are his title deeds ?
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Oh dear, here we go again.
Come on Law Officers – you must have completed your research by now???!!
We don’t want to find ourselves debating whether the Guernsey Boys are right or wrong all over again!
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It’s free to dump a car over here if you have the log book! Or if it’s in good condition drive it on the ferry and scrap it in the UK, once paid for ferry services you get to keep a few quid in your pocket.
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Simon, you can’t compulsorily purchase something when there is no proof of who you’d be purchasing it off.
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The Truth
Er why not?
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simon – the current compulsory purchase law would be no good as that requires (a) that the land is needed for some major project (eg the airport) and (b) that the States serves notice on the owner and pays them consideration. Wanting to get the carpark under proper ownership would not count as (a), and you cannot satisfy (b) if you don’t know who the owner is.
However, what the States should do is pass a specific Law for the Cobo car park, which allows a 3 month period in which anyone can step forward to claim ownership. If no-one does (or anyone does but cannot prove ownership) then the land is declared to belong to the States and it pays a cash sum equal to market value into a trust account. There is then a further period of 10 years in which anyone can step forward to prove their ownership, and they get the cash, If no-one can prove ownership, the money goes back to the States. Seems fair and means that no-one is deprived of their property value, provided they can prove ownership.
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Why would anyone dump a car ? In the UK a car is worth minimum £100 scrap value, just for the weight in metal.
Is Guernsey not cashing in on the scrap metal boom ?
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Terry L
A very workable and common sense approach
Unfortunately our leaders don’t often do common sense
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The ownership is claimed through the purchase of Fief Les Carterets for £50’000.
If the law officers make a ruling that does not recognise ownership from a legal perspective this could set a very dangerous precedent. It could open the flood gates to large portions of land on the island being challenged.
A conclusion needs to be made. Here’s a link that explains a bit more about it.
http://www.artfact.com/auction-lot/about-the-year-1020,-the-island-of-guernsey-was-s-1-c-h6sz1dywlc
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Another link that sheds a little more light on the situation.
http://cobocarpark.com/Further_public_interest_info.pdf
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Well said Terry, unfortunately it’s probably not human rights compliant or some such complication.
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Paul – that fief stuff is nonsense. You cannot pass property ownership in Guernsey by buying a fief title. Property can only change hands by an Act of Court – no registered Act of Court, no title.
To say that the holder of the title of the fief is the landowner is like saying that the Queen owns all of the land in Guernsey – sheer nonsense.
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Paul – that second link of yours most certainly does not shed light. It is smoke and mirrors posted by Mr Holroyd who claims ownership and yet conspicuously fails to produce the one bit of paper that is required to show ownership – a registered Act of Court.
The history of the fief and who paid for what, when, and who wrote what to whom is all very well but is irrelevant to the question of who owns the land now in 2011.
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Terry Langlois
No doubt you are better informed than a prominent senior advocate & the Castel Constables combined?
Put us all out of our misery & let’s hear the conclusion then.
Whilst you’re at it you will be able to sort out the solutions for the Seigneur of Sark.
How about then moving onto the legalities of land ownership with regards to the Royal Family?
All of the above are connected to ancient rights & entitlements.
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Paul – there is nothing in those documents posted by Holroyd which mentions a transfer of land to his BVI (or wherever it is incorporated) company.
Without that, how can his company be the owner?
Letters written 25 years ago mean nothing when the basis of his claim is that his company bought the “land” more recently. Only if he can produce that land transfer is it even worth thinking about whether the seller was the owner at the time of the sale.
But in fact, he has never actually claimed to have bought the land, as far as I can tell. He has only claimed to have bought the title to the fief. And the title to the fief does not give ownership of the land.
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Useless laws, useless government, useless system. Can’t even sort this out. Amateurs one and all.
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Wake up Chaps
Cobo has far more serious issues which need to be sorted – the beach has been swiped off the clean beaches review – it has an unsolved Ecoli problem and a smelly sewage output. The coastal sea wall currently seems to be working, but come a high tidal storm, this could again be in danger of collapse.
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The main issue here is abandoned cars. Why are they abandoned? It’s because if you cannot prove ownership (for what ever reason) you have to pay Gsy Recycling IRO £100 to take it. Yes it’s ‘free’ if you own the car but that’s only because it’s susidised by the States. So whats the cause here? UK you get £100 for your car, Gsy you pay £100. Seems straight forward to me. Someones getting rich at £200 per car, even Condor’s cheaper.
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Donkey Doo – the situation you describe is crazy, but I don’t think that is the root cause at Cobo.
From the statements made when the Guernsey Boys cleared the car park last time, it appeared that Holroyd was buying cars in order to place them there. Iif that is the case, then it is not a case of old cars being abandoned, but is about one person trying to get money out of the nearby businesses by making a nuisance of himself.
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Get this law sorted out ASAP
the island it littered with old cars and other vehicles
If they were removed there would be plenty of parking spaces .
as for some parked along the road it is agaist the law to leave them in some places with out lights on .
an accident waiting to happen
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I wonder if these Beans as owners originated in Jersey, is this the cause of the current Hoo Ha Ha with the Guernsey Boys down at the Rocky Pub ?
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It’s time for the SOG to look at the whole issue of fiefs, cede the land to the owners or tradition users, licence the land to the latter and get rid of this whole anachronistic idiocy.
Quaint, but just silly in 21st Century Guernsey.
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Neil
I agree
I believe some Fiefs come with rights to the owners own pew in the nearby church
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Well said again Neil but I’d go even further. Clear ALL this feudal nonsense off the statute books, including the clameur de haro, which is nothing more than a 1,000 year out of date legal tool that is used these days only by vexatious people with no real modern day legitimacy to back their cases. Just like Mr Holroyd and the saga of the Cobo eyesores in fact.
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Just waiting for someone to come in with ‘But it’s good for tourism!’
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Ray – I’m curiously wondering what could possibly be “good for tourism” – a load of old knackered cars by a local beauty spot or some outdated laws from medieval times that are delaying their removal?! ;-)
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Paul Le Page
Agree 100% which is why I fully expect someone to take the opposite view about Fiefs
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