John Snow Close
The Government of Gibraltar sold three properties on John Snow Close separately. The Aloes purchased on the 25th February 2005 by us, then on the 23rd October 2006 Lancashire House was sold without the vehicular access and on the 6th December 2006, John Snow House was sold with part of John Snow Close included for private parking.
The buyer of John Snow House was granted (demised) part of John Snow Close as parking for their cars. (This was 2.2 m from the boundary wall).This effectively prevented vehicular access to Lancashire House WITHOUT having to trespass over the demise of John Snow House which now included part of John Snow Close.
On the 23rd October 2006, Lancashire House is sold with a garage at the entrance to the road, presumably to offset the fact that there will be no vehicular access to Lancashire House.
The remaining space in John Snow Close between the two demises is too tight to pass a car!
Original survey 2005
Back in 2005 specialist land surveyors undertook a full and detailed GPS survey to an accuracy of 3 decimal places of the entire demise area of The Aloes. It is a factual record of real boundaries surveyed at the time of purchase.
Brian Francis Associates in February 2006 produced a photographic report showing the lane and the clear boundary of the New Aloes
Another digital survey with GPS points made in 2009 further records the position of the boundary of The New Aloes
A garage was then constructed by Mr Labrador in 2012 / 2013 effectively blocking both his own vehicular access and any future vehicular access to Lancashire House.
The garage has been constructed in part of John Snow Close, making it now impossible for Lancashire House or John Snow House to have vehicular access beyond this garage without trespassing on land belonging to The New Aloes.
Note: at the time when the garage was being constructed The New Aloes boundary wall had been temporarily demolished due to building works.
Supplemental lease granted by LPS to Richard Labrador further endorses the need to trespass on New Aloes land
Even though the new garage of Mr Labrador blocked his own access (and Lancashire House’s access) LPS granted a supplemental lease for the part of the garage which he built outside the demise of John Snow House.
Original photos taken before and during contruction
Additionally, please note, the visible road surface scarring that is evident in both the original photo and the photograph taken after the garage was built.
The road surface scars are of particular importance as there are several distinctive marks on the road that allow the viewer to fix the position of the road edge. These lines are highlighted in yellow for clarity. It is evident from the photograph on the left (being an extract of the photo from the Brian Francis Associates Report) that the lane was previously only wide enough for a normal sized vehicle. If you then look to the photo on the right, following the line of the scaring, it can be seen that the garage encroaches into John Snow Close to such a degree that passage would have been impossible had the wall in front of the New Aloes not been temporarily removed for construction. Note also again the white line marked by Mr Labrador as the extent of his ownership and again it is clear the limited space available and it is certainly not a car width!
The issue of access is therefore two-fold:
Firstly, vehicular access to Lancashire House was not envisaged due to the width between Mr Labrador’s demised parking spaces in 2006 and the New Aloes boundary. Lancashire House was therefore sold by the MOD with a garage at the end of the lane to serve its needs, and only pedestrian access to the property itself. This was known to the owners.
We have always actively tried to cement relations with both neighbours, even to the extent of paying fully for the entire re-construction of the lane and paying fully for making alignment improvements to the junction and paying fully for installing new lighting and paying fully for service upgrades, even landscaping the HM Government owned land between Europa Road and the Close and fully surfacing Mr Labrador’s parking space and access area. Since completion several years ago we have also continued solely paying for any required maintenance of the road.
Unfortunately, given that Mr Labrador was allowed to effectively block his own and potential access to Lancashire House resulting in access only being possible if those accessing trespass over The New Aloes land, it would seem that continued access can therefore only be maintained if those accessing continue to trespass onto our property. (The New Aloes)
It is one thing to help out a neighbour but now the idea is to drive for ever and bring all delivery lorries over what was part of our front garden!
Respectfully we will now replant and add flowers and trees back to the edge of our boundary.
We are left wondering why Mr Labrador was allowed to build a garage that blocked his own access.
Also we are wondering how there can a planning application for Lancashire House that requires the trespass of countless tonnes of building materials and numerous trucks and also has a garage space shown that clearly allows for the parking of many cars when the property clearly does not have vehicular access?