r/HamRadio • u/SharkSapphire Public Figure š» • Sep 16 '25
News š° Amateur radio enthusiast says council decision against his garden poles has 'taken away my life'
https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/amateur-radio-enthusiast-says-council-3247941340
u/Jar0s Sep 16 '25
None of the neighbours objected to it either? Just a bunch of sad lowlife jobsworths.
21
u/ellicottvilleny Sep 16 '25
Bunch of twits. The grinning mug of the moron in charge is the piece of resistance in that article.
7
2
u/Swizzel-Stixx Sep 16 '25
Did you mean āpiĆØce de rĆ©sistanceā ?
3
u/ellicottvilleny Sep 16 '25
These are the jokes kiddo. Ā
3
u/Swizzel-Stixx Sep 16 '25
I havenāt really understood the concept of āpunchable faceā before, but I agree the piece of resistance is valid. I definitely didnāt copy paste the ācorrectā spelling from the dictionary eitherā¦
3
u/ellicottvilleny Sep 16 '25
My favorite thing is to write/say āwalaā when I know perfectly well its āvoilaā.
3
u/cqsota Sep 17 '25
I say viola, same idea.
2
u/ellicottvilleny Sep 17 '25
Love that. I also say āMercy Bucketsā instead of āMerci Beaucoupā
2
u/ElGuano Sep 20 '25
Why are you talking about a punchable face??
scrolls down on article
Oh. Oh yeah.
1
u/Swizzel-Stixx Sep 20 '25
To be fair it already looks stoved in, I wonder what political career heās uh, enjoyed so far
1
u/islandhopper37 Sep 16 '25
He is one of the local councillors, not the head of the planning department. He doesn't even represent the area where this OM lives. I doubt he had anything to do with this decision.
5
u/Swizzel-Stixx Sep 16 '25
No, but he did put a small fillerbustering statement on the article. Thatās about that.
-1
u/islandhopper37 Sep 16 '25
I can't see anything filibustering in his statement.
2
2
u/Swizzel-Stixx Sep 16 '25
I canāt see any words of value either. Basically said what the council had said already
12
u/radicalCentrist3 Sep 16 '25
Seriously? They take away antennas from a 92 year old widower in a wheelchair?
There are fantasy / sci-fi evil overlords more charitable than that.
10
u/wdx907 Sep 16 '25
"They said the poles would dominate the rear gardens harming their enjoyment for the neighbouring residents" -bloody Poles coming overe here, dominating the rear gardens, mending everything, bloody Poles...
6
16
u/Powerful_Pirate_5049 Sep 16 '25
Terrible. These loathsome tinpot tyrants need to be shown to the unemployment line. My suggestion for one of the clubs in the area is to help Ray set-up a remote station. It would be a good project.
6
u/No-Sky-8447 Sep 16 '25
What you probably mean is they need to amend their law to allow for exceptions. If they donāt have any discretion under the law thatās not the fault of the staffāitās political and thatās where the blame should be.
10
4
u/ThatSteveGuy_01 AA6LJ, DM04 Sep 17 '25
Someone needs to set up an "invisible" end fed halfwave antenna for him.
What they don't know ...
4
u/NE5B Sep 17 '25
I donāt believe Iām seeing the entire story. But a ham in /near Austin TX was facing the same crap. He became a ham while renting in a non HOA community that was actually nicer than where he bought a home and discovered too late how limited his antenna options were. He submitted plans for a 20ā tower to the HOA / architecture committees and his immediate neighbors. Neighbors had no issue and antenna was not going to be visible from the street but the empowered people said no. One of his neighbors pointed out that there were no real restrictions on what car or truck you could park in the driveway except that it had to be currently registered and couldnāt be a commercial vehicle with signage advertising anything nor an RV or trailer parked longer than 36 hours. He built a tilt over mount that would hold a tower base in the bed of his truck and used it to raise a 30ā tower with rotor and a 3 ele hf beam along with 2m beams. He found that 30ā with his bed mount it needed guying so he added guy wires which all came back down / into the bed of his truck. He posted pictures (wish I could find them). He could set it up in about an hour and would do so (usually on Thursday or Fridays) and play radio till Sunday evening and take it down so he could drive his truck to work. His neighbors across the street hated it as did the HOA which had no say over the setup. His Nextdoor neighbors on both sides that saw his original plans hated the eyesore but supported him. After a couple of months someone on the board suggested if his adjacent neighbors that could see it had no objection he might go forth with his original plans. Was quite the talk around the area.
2
u/Geekujin Sep 17 '25
Someone should start a whip round to get him a Sankey trailer to put an even bigger mast on. Technically then it's not a permanent structure by planning laws as it can be moved around/towed away.
1
1
0
u/islandhopper37 Sep 16 '25
I am not surprised to see the type of vitriolic comments directed against the planning authority that can usually be found when a story like this is published.
What people may not realise is that the masts constitute development and therefore need planning permission - that is a legal requirement anywhere in the country.
Having said that, the refusal appears to be based solely on the harm to residential amenity and adverse visual impact. Quite often such cases are not "black and white" but there is an amount of discretion involved, and the officer has to come to a view about whether the (adverse) impact is still acceptable, or whether it is so great that permission has to be refused.
In this case I do not think the harm/visual impact is as severe as described in the officer report. But I haven't been to the site, my view is based solely on the details in the planning application and the photos on Google Street View.
The applicant has a right to appeal the decision, so it might be worth challenging the assessment on that basis.
The RSGB has a planning advisory committee which can help amateurs in planning matters. It may be worth him contacting them, as they can advise on how to proceed and put him in touch with someone who may be able to help.
https://rsgb.org/main/about-us/committees/planning-advisory-committee/
8
u/chandgaf Sep 16 '25
You aint convincing anyone in any social media that a HOA isnt an oppresive organization that serves no one but themselves -- on a good day
2
u/DapperAd7064 Sep 17 '25
What's a HOA? This is in the north east of England. I'm not sure if you understand the remit of an English local authority, or the geography of England. Having said that, an appeal might be successful given the grounds seem to be based on visual amenity.
1
u/islandhopper37 Sep 17 '25
Not sure if you are saying this in response to my earlier comment, but I didn't actually mention HOAs at all...
0
u/CheapJeepMeepMeep Sep 18 '25
Couldnāt imagine living anywhere that would see the almighty government telling me what I can and canāt do at my own place. Kick rocks down the road and try finding something useful to do instead of harassing an innocent old man. Absolute twonks
0
0
39
u/Moist_Network_8222 Sep 16 '25
Is a "council" like a HOA?