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news
Velolife 2 (picture credit Andy Gray)Two complaints about Velolife in the last two years – reveals FoI request
A freedom of information (FoI) request has revealed that Velolife, the Berkshire café that is the subject of an injunction banning “cyclists’ meets”, has been the subject of just two complaints to the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead (RBWM) in the last two years.
RBWM says that cycling clubs are entitled to stop at Velolife – but that there’s a chance the café could face legal action if they do.
The situation arose following complaints about cyclists gathering at the café. Changes to opening hours have not resolved the matter and RBWM recently sent community wardens to ‘monitor’ the premises.
Velolife owner, Lee Goodwin, is looking to challenge the injunction and a crowdfunding campaign set up to cover his legal costs has so far raised almost £20,000.
This week RBWM responded to an FoI request asking how many complaints and complainants there have been.
The council said that two complaints had been received – one directed to planning enforcement and the other to environmental protection.
The number of complainants was withheld, although the attached documents seem to make it clear that it was the same person.
Following a noise nuisance complaint in 2016, a series of recommendations were made to Velolife about how to minimise disturbance. These included a suggestion that cyclists meet at “the far end of the car park” on a Saturday morning.
In a 2017 email to the complainant, a council officer stated that the recommendations had been completed and it was then judged that “a noise nuisance was unlikely” and that case was closed.
The same officer states that the planning case continued. “Planning law is more stringent than noise nuisance law, requiring a quieter volume of noise than noise nuisance law.”
The documents also give some sense of the issues. The complainant following up on the matter later in 2017, writing: “We were wondering whether you have been in touch with the Planning Inspectorate in respect of any last minute appeal from Velolife about the removal of the steel containers on the car park as the Art studio/sales were still open and trading at the weekend.
“Once again it was extremely busy and very noisy with large numbers of cyclists both inside the building and outside in the car park. There were again displays of unacceptable nose and throat clearing onto the car park [redacted].”
Speaking last week, Goodwin said that he had been moved by the success of the crowdfunding campaign.
“It has made me a little bit emotional to be honest. It just shows we’re part of a much bigger community. The support has been quite overwhelming.”
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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16 comments
I'd get your natural breaks in before it's an offence like in Hemel Hempstead. Do it quietly in the corner of the car park.
How can planning laws be more strict on noise than public nuisance laws? Isn’t the point of the law that it does not constitute a public nuisance? And why does it need to be more stringent than necessary to not annoy anyone? Why do council get to decide what an acceptable threshold is, rather than a uniform level set by the environment agency?
I have dealt with some wacky council planning departments in the land of Oz, but nothing as outright obstructive as this saga. How does anything ever get done without regulatory certainty?
Won't someone think of the children??
“There were again unacceptable displays of nose and throat clearing ONTO the car park” - my emphasis. On a cold morning one problem with most cycling gear is no hankie pockets. But seriously, that’s a quote from Mr Complainant in the course of the FOI disclosure.
Follow the money, they say, and there’s a smell now (see the other thread witnesses FoI disclosures) of someone wanting to redevelop the site for residential use. I don’t know the detail of how this works, but you presumably have to show that commercial use isn’t viable?
I welcome the presence of the community wardens to establish some facts here. Here’s their last g from the other weekend
8:02 Saturday arrived Warren Row
8.17 have passed up and down the village 3 times, all quiet - cannot identify site
8:25 provided advice to local resident that we are not here about the drains
8:32 base, please confirm exact location of site
8:38 am have clea view of location; provided clean-up advice to dog walker
8:47 provided directional assistance to Amazon delivery man; otherwise quiet
8:53 five males, two females have arrived on bikes and are in Velolife car park
09:00 now fourteen people total on bikes in car park
09:01 provided advice re: throat-clearing to two males; provided advice as to community warden role to one female
09:03 observed one male cyclist spitting - ticket no JW43245/19 issued
09:06 cyclists departed
09:06 all quiet
09:10 provided advice to resident adjoining site that all occurrences were noted; remained impartial about auggestions that you could put four luxury houses on the site.
I’d love to know what an unacceptable nose looks like.
Apparently it's been cleared out, so that will remain a mystery.
Talk about the Council choosing it's fight. If I complain to my local authority about a section of dangerous road infrastructure where a cyclist is likely to be seriously injured or killed, I am lucky to even get an acknowledgement. As for action, I wish.
So here we have someone who has been at worst mildly inconvenienced. So what does this Council do, it goes the full nuclear with an injunction. They see cyclists, they see a problem. F'sake.
Presumably it was ok when people puked in the car park after too many jaegerbombs.
No doubt they all went home quietly and no car engines were started.
So this whole farce is over a snot rocket or two? I suspect whilst it was a pub, the car park may have been the scene of the occasional vomit comet. The former landlord (the alleged complainent) seems a right royal hypocrite.
Not just the vomit but the socially acceptable use of the car park, pub walls and surrounding areas as a public latrine.
I'm sure that really enhanced the local environment.
Alcohol brings out the worst in people and invariably at unsociable hours. There is surely no such thing as a pub without regular boyfriend-girlfriend breakup/shouting matches, name-calling in the street and the occasional fight.
I am really struggling to believe that a Sunday morning of clipping pedals or riders comparing segment times over a coffee can be considered anti-social behaviour in the same way.
The longer it goes on, the more it appears that this is simply a council cock-up that has then snowballed because no-one was willing to admit that they were wrong. I guess it's partly because of the influence/position of the person(s) who made those complaints.
Part of it is that alcohol and its effects are generally treated as 'socially acceptable', though, and most people will put up with it, just writing it off as "Oh well, its a pub".
People are weird about their Sunday mornings, though. God forbid if you try to make noise before about 10.30 round my way (even if I've been up since 7). If I want to cut the grass or hedge or anything, I wait until I hear that someone else has started - I would never want to be the first person to start up, or else the village FB group would go mad about it!
Look at York for example. The whole place has turned into weekend hellhole past about 3pm as loads of pissup tourists flood in to make the place unpleasant. Those in charge are happy to accept the violence of whatever else for the £££ it brings in.
The last time I was in York was a couple of months ago, on my bike, Saturday afternoon. It was mayhem. Crowds of drunken hen parties. I used to think York was a nice place to visit but that has put me completely. I couldn't get out of there quick enough.
Tourists? Don't you mean Geordies and their hen/stag events particularly at Harkers ?
Great news about the crowd-funding and we can all hope that his appeal will be successful.
I guess we've all been too absorbed by the government's self-inflicted Brexit ultra-shambles to pay attention to the real issues, like throat clearing and nose blowing. Surely the council will now have to admit that this is just a vendetta by the previous owner with very little, if any, validity. Or they could just keep wasting their tax-payers' money. I have to say, if I lived there, I'd be making my councillors lives hell.