March 16th 2009The final hearing results were that the claim was dismissed. The judge did overturn Judge Griggs view that theri was no contract, which means that the claim was valid and I can ask for expenses.

1. Stop using the water. Already sorted
2. Remove the extension. Bad wording on my part. The judge pointed out that the contract only required that they disconnect their extension, not remove it. He decided that it would not be in neighbourly interests to do more as the pipe was shortened, capped and buried. I think he actually said, given May Gurney’s quote of some £1200 that it wasn;t financial prudent to expect them to do more.
3. Pay £60 for excess waterJudge pointed out that I didn’t provide any evidence of the water use. Although I did have at the hearing they should have been provided at the start of the claim.
4. Was awarded the £70 cost for getting the police incident reports. Judge went o great lengths to explain to the Townsend’s that their attempts to colour me were inappropriate and a waste of time.

January 8th 2009 Have a directions hearing at 11:05 Monday 12th.

Yesterday I drained the water from the pipe in anticipation of Craig Townsend working on capping ‘his’ extension. The amount of water I extracted from the tap before it emptied was about 45lt, not the best part of 400lt as I was expecting, suggesting that any leak is just before the pipe enters our land proper.

Obvious places of concern are a) where the pipe goes under the track and b) the extension and t-junction just before it leaves the Townsend property.

Today at approx 11am I was invited to see the capping, that Craig did to the Townsend’s extension, outside the shed. From what I could tell the work was tidy and there was no leak on first inspection.

I was hoping to ensure he covered it over properly, but he left to get sand and didn’t want me to stay on the land. I returned, but Craig told me the sand had been laid and wouldn’t allow for me to measure the position of the pipe nor its angle towards the mains, from which would I could have estimated of the position of the junction.

On the water leakage
By time I had turned the tap off some of the recorded 419.8 litres were lost or stored (328.0572 - 327.6379). However the fact remains that the pipeline is full and if it isn’t used for a few weeks or a month I may be able to estimate the position of the leak.

I have just, 11:06, called Plymouth County Court and have been told the papers are still with the Judge.

24th May 01:18 Just remembered a letter and got it before it was devoured by the snails. From yesterday I have been asked to ‘discuss the possibility of the above case being dealt with by way of mediation’.
I have emailed to say I am looking forward to hear how this may be achieved. Full text of email.

27th May 11:14
I have just received a letter from the Small Claims section of the County Court, saying that District Judge Tromans considers the case suitable for mediation. Letter will be transcribed to main website. -:- 11:19 Called Tanya Johnson (01392 415513) as the court suggested. She wasn’t available so I left a message reminding her that I sent an email a few days ago. 17:53 Have emailed her again.

29th May 10:45
Tanya called and a mediation over the phone is on the cards for 1st July between 2 and 3pm. I have since been informed that the Townsend’s want a face to face meeting with the counsellor. -:- 22:42I’m not sure if I will ask for my part to be over the phone. Will email with other queries.

18th June Tanya called today to say that she had received my authorisation for the mediation and that the Townsend’s have now asked for it to be a telephone mediation.

1st July
Mediation took place as scheduled today. See mediation.htm

19th July
On 16th July I managed to salvage, form the snails, the latest court notification that the hearing proper will be at 14:30 on 30th September.

20th August
Sent a letter to May Gurney on 31st July asking for a quote to disconnect the Townsend’s extension and have just called (01726 885300) to say I have no reply yet.

Link: http://elf.calstock.org.uk/admin

The ELF trust Admin seems pretty sketchy at times, not surprisingly as most of the work is landscaping and organic food plots.

The most frequent issue is neighbour problems.

Currently they are

• Issues over abuse of water contract with Townsend’s
  Link to letters (’The Townsend Tango’ requires authorisation to view)
  Update on small claim
• Rubbish being dumped on the land by neighbours at Harewood Gardens
• Use of land by Okel Tor as part of the footpath they have provided to the public
• Unauthorised cutting of trees by the Kings at Trekensa Gardens
• Still have to establish proper understanding of boundary fence with owners of part Harewood House

And of course there is the planning issue.