On 11 Sep 2005 15:15:28 GMT, (Andrew
Gabriel) wrote:

Council appear to have sprayed a jet of some weed and grass killer
across my lawn when killing the weeds on the footpath. I don't suppose
there's any antidote, particularly now it shows up quite clearly?
Probably happened a couple of weeks ago -- I noticed an area last
week which wasn't very green and watered it. By this week, it's
very clear from the pattern of the dead area exactly what's happened,
a dead spray shaped area with a sharp cutoff caused by the gate post.
Also, it's dying at the same rate as the weeds on the pavement.


Andrew, I would suggest taking some photos immediately and then
speaking to the highways dept. at the council in terms of some
compensation - especially as this is a fine grade lawn and is not
going to be cheap to fix. You can't just get any old grade of
replacement turf because the colours and species are unlikely to
match.

Unfortunately I don't have a high expectation that they have a proper
mechanism to address this kind of issue in terms of paying you the
fair market rate to fix it. Simple logic would suggest obtain two
quotes for a proper fix and send them the bill. However, as one TV
scifi once had as a famous line - "We are not programmed to respond in
that area" - i.e. not commercially minded.

Then you are faced with how much time do you want to spend on
recovering something from them.

Perhaps a call to the local press to see if they are short of a human
vs. big brother story, if it becomes necessary?


--

..andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl