London Advice

[Mikie_gb]

Need a bit of advice from any of you guys living in London.

At the end of June I will be relocating from Edinburgh to London. It will mean giving up my daily drive and the prospect of having the 944 not garaged.

My options are to park it on the street in the Hampstead/ Queens Park area or putting it in Classic car storage and getting to use it very seldom.

I am extremely nervous about parking it on the street as here in Edinburgh I have had:

Mini- Bonnet and roof jumped flat, wing mirror torn off, fish supper speared on all the windows.
VW Jetta- Windows smashed body work damaged- car written off, retained but then stolen a month later.
BMW-scratched, spoiler torn off, bonnet bashed in with a pipe, tyres slashed- car written off.
Porsche- never parked on the street, but a figure of 8 scratched in bonnet in the two minutes I was in a corner shop.

These incidents are seperate and took place at various locations around the city and only the BMW was done in by my neighbour.

If London is half this bad then it will need to be either sold or stored. Biased or unbiased views welcome

 

[Sundeep]

well my 911 is on the street.. always makes that home car wash a bit tricky !

not ideal but it survives, it has picked up the odd traffic flesh wound from other parked cars but otherwise fine.... any such incidents can happen but are IMHO very rare.... anyway there are hundreds & hundreds of Porsche's out there which are fine on those London roads, esp in Hamstead !


although from your Scottish experience I think that will remind me to always park in a car park the next time I am there !

 

[Fen]

ORIGINAL: Mikie_gb

These incidents are seperate and took place at various locations around the city and only the BMW was done in by my neighbour.

There's got to be a story there... Do tell...

 

[Guest]

Hi Mikie,

I have mine garaged for £80 a month (in a complex with security and a two key remote entrance) about ten minutes drive away from the flat, as I live in Bethnal Green and it wouldn't last five minutes on the street.

I did consider putting it in storage but as you say it would never get used.

There are always lots of adverts for spaces to rent in the local papers (loot, exchange and mart etc)

I know there are spare spaces in my garage in Islington if you need somewhere for the interim.

Cheers

Dan

 

[Mikie_gb]

Thanks for the response. Dan, I may contact you closer the time for details.

There's got to be a story there... Do tell...

Well... Picture this.... 12x three bedroom flats in a none too cheap traditional tenement (well above the scottish national average). Sadly the council still owns 4 of them and decides to move an ex-crackhead/attempted murderer (by her own admission) and her family into one of them.

As you can imagine all hell breaks loose and in the next 13 months the car was destroyed and a lot more (assult, pissing through letter boxs, the works). What had I done to them ? Errr... nothing, just my gender preference. One of my twit friends had mentioned it to a neighbour who told this lot. Mad woman and her family are still in the flat at the tax payers expense. I sold up and moved away.

although from your Scottish experience I think that will remind me to always park in a car park the next time I am there !

Hmmmm. Parking in Edinburgh? £900 k worth of tickets issued in one street in one year alone. George street. Car park for this reason alone makes sense.

 

[Fen]

Hmm, less amusing than I expected and not something I would like to go through myself. I guess this sort of scum is everywhere but my experience of Edinburgh has always been good, so much so that I'd possibly even consider moving there which makes it pretty unique in Scotland (and I'm from Scotland so I am allowed to say that).

Cue howls of protest from the Glaswegian contingent...

 

[carlmthompson]

I spent alot of time in Edinburgh in the late 90's.

I rated it as the next place I would live in the UK if I couldn't live in Newcastle. (although, like Leeds, there are alot of homeless).

Mikie - we've tried to get rid of the sort of people you have encountered on numerous occasions - my history isn't very good , but it was something to do do with either Australia or the US (tounge firmly in cheek in case anyone takes offence[])

Sorry you've had experiences like that - some people are just plain bad / stupid / pointless etc.

 

[Guest]

No Probs mikie,

let me know if you need any more info.

Cheers

Dan

 

[Mikie_gb]

I don't dissing Edinburgh. Having lived in a country that boasted that the murder rate had dropped by 8% in 2003 to just under 20 000 (Twenty Thousand) a year, Edinburgh is paradise by comparison.

My move is purely a career one. I will miss the Festival and Hogmonay, but the disparity in earnings of my profession at my level is 38%. I do however have a problem with the Beaurocrats spending £400 m on a palace for themselves, when 50% of households in Glasgow are non earners. (that's 10 000 boxters that could have been distributed to the poor.)[]

I have had some excellent weekend drives in the highlands in the recent past trying to pack in some miles before I leave.