Resistance is Futile 1

More tales from the slopes of the Earl of Carnarvon’s old stomping ground, formerly known as Marshall Hill and now known as Porchester Gardens.

What we are going to see here is the tale of a householder on Ethel Avenue that wanted to demolish his old cottage, which sits on a 0.16 hectare site, and replace it with 3 new 4-bedroom houses. In pursuit of that he has uprooted almost every green thing on the site (making it a wasteland), blocked access to a green way and received written objections from (almost) every neighbour. The application has been turned down, a judge has told him to restore the Public right-of-way & in response he is throwing a major-league strop, shrouding all his boundary with black plastic. Quite a tale. But first, some brief history of the area.

Marshall Hill was part of land enclosed by the Earl of Kingston (1672), sold in entirety by Kingston’s heirs to Carnarvon (1912), and sold in lots to Nottingham citizens that wanted allotments for gardens (1887). Messrs Samuel Robinson, Charles Bennett and David Whittingham acted as guarantors for the latter action (the names of these three are known by householders throughout this 130 acre (52.6 hectares) neighbourhood). Only 2 years later roads began to be laid out & houses built on the plots; that really began to take off in the period following the Great War (1920s & 1930s).

Two things that, in my experience, feature a lot in Porchester Gardens are unadopted roads and Public rights of way; this little tale has both:

The unadopted roads are Emmanuel Avenue and Ethel Avenue. Both are single-track width private roads; Emmanuel Avenue in particular drops like a stone down the side of the hill from Porchester Road, and connects at right-angles to Ethel Avenue at it’s bottom. Ethel Avenue looks like your classic private road (badly maintained with lots of potholes) whilst Emmanuel Avenue’s tarmac is in superb condition. Here’s the view from near the top (this and the photo in part 1 are essentially looking at each other from opposite sides of the valley between them):

Probably the best known local Public right of way is Donkey Steps (photo here). As the ecumenical Porchester Parish boundary runs up Donkey Steps it is likely that humans have been making use of that track for hundreds, and possibly even thousands, of years. It is this tread of history that is the backdrop to the importance of Public rights of way, and how easily they can be lost. To illustrate the latter we have an example close to both the main protagonist (on Kenrick Road) and to Donkey Steps:

Donkey Steps opens at the top onto Hillview Road close to where it meets Standhill Road (and I was told most forcefully “there is no space in ‘Hillview’!”). Opposite the Porchester Junior School, where Standhill makes a bend to the left, is the beginnings of a public footpath that runs first through to Florence Road, then to Daisy Road then Kenrick Road. It should continue next in a dead-straight line alongside 1 Kenrick Road (and the Ordnance Survey map still shows it travelling that way, then emerging onto Porchester Road between numbers 224 & 226, but today it is blocked at either end). A neighbour told me conspiratorially about the Kenrick Road householder that “the judge said that no-one had objected, so he got away with it”. I’ve been unable to find any report about that loss of rights, so cannot speak with any authority on the matter.

Now on to the heart of this Diary report, which is into the Green Lane which runs from Kenrick Road to the junction of Emmanuel & Ethel Avenue. Or rather, used to run to those two avenues, since Mr Lee Freeley, the owner of 21 Ethel Avenue, has completely prevented any connection between those roads along the green lane. This is a recent view of the way from Kenrick Road (there are also views from Ethel Avenue in a 2015 Nottm Evening Post story and Google Streetview (October 2014)):

Mr Freeley proposed to use this green way as a driveway for one of his new houses. The whole story is perhaps a bit too long, so here are some highlights:—

1. There have been applications for redevelopment of 21 Ethel Avenue prior to that from Mr Freeley (pdf) (24 October 2014). All have been declined by the local residents and the local authorities, including this latest.
2. A March 2011 Tree Preservation Order was made upon a Larch, a Yew & a Maple tree. The Maple tree had to be felled anyway. Bing map tiles show a capture date of 10/1/2011-3/26/2012 and a vast proliferation of mature trees on the site, all of which have now been cleared (the site is a wasteland). I also noticed Yew trees at 10 Ethel Avenue (the house opposite); Yew trees in medieval settings are often symptomatic of Religious activity on the site.
3. There is the curiosity of “a strip of land running along the backs of the properties fronting Kenrick Road. The ownership of this strip of land is unknown”. Cross-referencing this strip of land with the streetregister map suggests that it may have been yet another right-of-way running parallel to Kenrick Road as it seems to join with the other right-of-way running beside 1 Kenrick Road (although some other houses have added it to their own property, and the streetregister map wrongly shows it as part of 21’s property).
4. The Green lane is owned by Gedling Borough Council. Local residents keep it in immaculate condition. A 163-signature petition was presented to the Council in April 2015 to make it into a public Bridleway, and an order issued the following week (see NEP story). Essentially this is the issue that has stopped the development. The PDF states:

Nottinghamshire County Council as Rights of Way Authority are currently dealing with a claim to make the Avenue from the junction of Ethel Avenue and Emmanuel Avenue to Kenrick Road a bridleway (Carlton Parish Public Bridleway) and have advised that the Avenue should be treated as a substantive right of way. I note the applicant has a personal right of way over the potential bridleway, as do the owners of the land on the Carnarvon Allotments and their successors in title. There is therefore a substantive number of people who potentially have the right to use the Avenue.

What a tortuous tale!