"Tony Bryer" wrote in message
...
In article , Imm wrote:

Our towns, villages and cities were laid out was when we never had
ridiculous draconian Stalinist planning systems geared to keep the
stinking rich very rich.

But in the absence of planning controls many properties were sold with
very rigourous covenants, which many residents associations try and
exploit today. On some of the private estates on Coombe Hill (Kingston,
SW London) any alterations to the outside of your property have to be
approved by the Residents Association. Tough if you've crossed the
chairman as there's no appeal.

Painting your front door is very different to the planning system. Covenants
were put in as there was no planning system. People made up their own. It
worked to a degree. Sometime they put in aspects that made it easy to rip
off people such as ransom strips. these are illegal in Canada, and should
be here. One poster has bought a field so no house will be next to him.
Fine, I have no problems with that. The ransom strips were put in, so the
landowner could sell the land, and still have control and potentially rip
people off for running services across his 6 inches of land.