Thanks for your response. I thought the drive way builders had moved on a few weeks ago, but alas, they've come back!! I was awoken Monday morning... at 7:45am... to a loud jack hammering type noise and looked out of my window to again see the whole front of our property covered with work vans and a dump truck. My drive was again blocked--both openings to our drive where blocked w/ several vehicles. My husband asked.. politely... for the vans to be moved so he could get out to go to work. He stood...patiently...waiting for nearly 1 hour 15 mins whilst the builders played the game 'who's got the keys'. They finally claimed that someone who wasn't even on the site had the keys to the vans and so we were told that we would need to wait for the person to bring the keys to the site. Needless to say, my husband was late for work which consequently was a meeting w/ a very important client. I will say he's had to wait every day this week for the vans to be moved and he has been late for work 3 days in total this week because of the fiasco w/ these builders each morning.I have no idea what is going on next door as our neighbour seems to have disapeared...again...whilst the work is being carried out. From what I can see, the new drive that was completed in April is now being ripped up and they are bringing in large lorry loads of a different type of paving. So I can only assume they are re-doing the drive? Three days ago I noticed a workman's toilet box thing being placed at the entrance of my neighbour's gates so I can again, only asuume that this is going to go on for weeks..again!On top of this noise, we have 2 neigbours directly behind us who are both starting 2 storey extensions...so lots more vans, large lorrys, disrupted parking, etc as we live at the end of the road so it's all wrapping around to the side of our property. They also start work at 7:45am Mon-Sat w/ jackhamering.I did try to ...politely...ask the builders to please do not block my drive as we need to be able to come/go freely as we both work and have appointments and in general I want to come/go as I want w/out having to ask and then wait for someone to move. I pointed out the various other spots they could park w/out causing disruption. I did not get a response and they seemed to just ignore me. I then asked..politely... if they would stop driving through the landscaped lawns in front of my gates w/ the dump trucks as it leaves huge muddy tracks through the grass and crushes some of the flowers, and then consequently when they drive over my drive it leaves huge muddy tyre marks on my drive w/ large lumps of mud which then gets all over our cars when we pull into the drive. I also asked if they would stop leaving their jackets, discarded food boxes/bags and drink bottles all along my garden wall and the gates to my drive. The whole front of my house looks like a tip and we've spent a fortune on landscaping!All in all, I think I have been very patient w/ these builders and the ones that where here before them. The construction has been ongoing since last August and there still seems to be no end in site for the immediate future so at this point my patience are wearing a little thin. The biggest problem for me is not being able to come/go from my home as I please. At the moment, I am looking at renting out my house for possibly a 6 month period, and then coming back to re-evaluate the situation. But the big question is, where does one move in this country to have a peaceful life??

Thank you for the tips/advice on reformatting!! I'll try to work out how to change my initial message.To answer your questions, yes, I have asked the builders to move their vehicles as at various points we were trying to get in/out of the drive or waiting for visitors to come and enter our property via our drive. The builders are usually just sitting around chatting and watching us struggling to get in/out, and they do not offer to move on their own initiative. Sometimes they would oblige w/in 10, 20, 30 mins of us asking, which obviously is inconvenient on a regular basis. There is some consolation in that these are builders and thus, will not be in the area forever-at some point they will finish their job(s) and move on! (She says hopefully!!)However, the neighbours in Welling were there to stay and would never move and almost seemed to be blocking the drive just to get a reaction. The more we 'just ignored' them, the worse it seemed to get. We were regularly late for work or appointments, and I often had to plan another way to get to/from things as I knew I probably would not be able to take my car. This, as you can imagine was extremely inconvenient and very very frustrating. They would also often park on the curb, but in a way that it was so far up onto the curb (i.e. close to our wall) that we were unable to get in/out of our front garden. There were a number of times we would have to climb over our next door neighbour's (1 meter high) fence to go through his garden to get to the street!! When we did ask the neighbour or their visitors to move from our drive they would respond w/ a load of verbal abuse and physical threats. Not to mention our asking would somehow seem to promt them to throw rubbish or lit cigerettes into our garden or turn up their stereos or break our flower pots outside our front door, etc.--something again I guess to get a reaction?? At first when we started calling the police for help the police claimed it was just a 'neighbour dispute', saying there was nothing they could do, and telling us, 'if you don't like it, move'. After a few months the police stopped responding to our calls at all, even when physical threats were being made-as the neighbours would deny they had said/done anything and any attempt we made to prove it would result in the police threatening to arrest us for an invasion of the neighbour's privacy!! This all started when we bought the house and there was an elderly man who lived there before us. I'm guessing these neighbours moving in was the reason for his selling as he'd lived in the area for over 50 years, but then moved w/in 1 year of these neighbours buying the property opposite. So my husband and I felt really deceived for not knowing the full story when we bought the property. Anyways, I'm guessing these neighbours had gotten used to parking their car in the old man's drive and then when we moved in and asked them to stop and then eventually put up the pole in the drive to prevent them from parking in our drive this is what set it all in motion. We overheard the neighbour say 'they shouldn't have done that! They'll regret it, we'll make them regret it!' -needless to say, 3 years on and they successeded in forcing us out of our home as their constant/daily abuse was just unbearable. For some reason the Welling police and council seemed intimindated by these neighbours. For the life of me, I can not imagine why, but no one would do anything about them and I'm presuming they are still allowed to regularly interfer and intimidate the lives of the other residents-which is a real shame! (Since that neighbour has bought/moved into that house about 4 years ago, 6 of the surrounding neighbours-including ourselves-have sold/moved out of the area. Prior to those neighbours coming only 1 person had sold/moved out of the street in the 5 years prior to that neighbour's move.)To be perfectly honest, I do not think it really matters what the laws say, because if the police/council will not use them then there is no hope for any of us!

Hi! I am new to this site, but am thankful that I have found this thread as I am having the same problem and would be ever so appreciative of some helpful advice!! I lived in Welling--DA16--Sort of SE London way for about 3 years. We had 1 small car space outside our house and it had a dropped curb which had 2 yellow lines across the front of it--which I thought meant no parking at any time. Also, our drive was within 50 feet of a major junction--which again I thought was off limits for parking. However, we were regularly blocked in/our of our drive by our neighbour and their visitors. The funny thing was, this particular neighbour had a rather large drive which would accomodate 6-7 vehicles and in addition there were 3 visitor parking spots on the other side of our house (away from the junction). So these people were avoiding parking in their own drive--there would be no cars in their own drive and they would drive through the visitor spots to park directly in front of my drive. We tried asking them to stop and they then started to park IN our drive when we would leave for work and we would come home to find their car actually in our driveway! We would ask that they move and they would refuse!! We received a load of verbal abuse and physical threats. I tried phoning the local police--Bexley Police and they said there was nothing they could do!! So we finally installed a post in our drive that we would let up/down as we came/went from the drive, but this did not preven the neighbours from parking across our drive on the double yellow lines in front of the dropped curb. We contacted the council, the local police, the highway department, the planning office, etc etc. Everyone in these Bexley departments told us there was nothing they could do and it was basically just a 'neighbour dispute'. It got to where my husband and I were regularly being late for work and our appointments b/c we could never get out of our drive. Then the neighbours started double parking in front of the drive which blocked the whole street. They would turn their radios up and yell abusive things towards our house to I guess try to draw our attention to the fact they were out there and blocking us in?? We had rubish thrown into our garden, alcohol bottles smashed in our drive and used condoms and food thrown into our garden. Also they would throw lit cigerettes into our bushes and I ended up having to take the bushes out b/c I thought they would catch them on fire and eventually burn the house. It really started to get out of hand and this was happening daily at all hours of the day/night. The other neighbours tried to complain, but as most were elderly or non-English speaking the neighbour managed to intimidate them from making 'official' complaints and the people began to hide away when these things were going on. To make things worse, the neighbour then begain to opperate a car sales from their rather large drive. I again, thought this would be against planning codes or something, but yet again when we contacted the council and the police they told us there was nothing they could do. Of course, the neighbour denied that they were parking illegally--even though they were parked across our drive when the police drove around on several occassions. I took photos of these things happening to prove they were lying and the police threatened to arrest ME saying that it was against the law for me to take photos w/out the person's consent... evn though they were breaking the law?? Needless to say, the police took the photos as evidence that I had taken them, but refused to acknowledge the activities in the photos or take action on them. The local Bexley Police branch told the neighbour that we had been complaining and several men and 1 woman from the property came over to my house and literally started to scream at us and tried to come into my house telling me I had better stop complaining and if I complained again they would 'get me'. When I reported that to the police they said...and I quote.. 'We don't have time for neighbour disputes. If you don't get on w/ your neighbour move!' ...Needless to say, we were shocked. We were unable to move for 3 years as we had just bought that house and w/ the housing market crash the house was no longer worth what we had paid for it, but we scrimped/saved to get the Heck outta there as quickly as possible. We were not able to sell the house fast enough so now we are renting it out, but I would much rather just sell it for whatever it's worth and never have to think about that house or Welling again. Now we live in a rather idealic part of Hertfordshire. The properties are much larger here--all between 5-8 bedrooms and everyone has a large circular drive; however, it is an ever expanding development and there are regularly construction vans dotted across driveways even though there are millions of other spots to park. I'm scared to speak to the neighbours about it or contact the police b/c of the horrible experience we had in Welling. I understand this is Hertfordshire Police and not the Met..but still... Police are Police, right? It does seem there is a lot of contradictory advice about who is responsible for what and who will do what, etc---first we were told to contact police, then highway department, then council, then back to highway, then planning office. Also, it seems like it depends on what area you live as to what they will do--Met/Bexley Police/Council would do absolutely nothing and actually told us, if you don't like it, move! Whereas other posts I've seen on this site say the police came out and actually towed the vehicle!! --I need to move where these people live!! Can anyone please advice on a course of action I should take here in Hertfordshire or is it a case again of either deal w/ it or move?? Thanks in advance for your replies and appologies for such a long initial post!!!: )