odd question - bonfires

[Polmoche]

Have a neighbour who is doing building works. Workers for the fifth straight day in a row has decided to set up a fire in an old steel drum container burning whatever is at hand (I think to keep warm). The smoke though is really annoying! Would you complain to the owners? I don't think bofires are illegal per se...is this just one of those annoying London things you have to live with?

[Mustard]

Call Southwark Environmental Health, 0207 525 2000 and report it.

[hazelnunhead]

This is an interesting one. We have an open plot next to our house, and we had the owner/builder burning fires constantly! (Instead of getting the rubbish taken away he decided it would be a better option to have someone on the plot with a constant open fire!) We asked him to stop he didn't. We asked Southwark to come out as didn't think it was legal, we had smoke and ash covering our backyard. Nothing really happened. I will try and find a link to the thread we started on this, but after getting a wood burner in our house, and following all the regulations for what we could have, what we could burn etc, it felt a little bit odd that someone could have a billowing fire on constantly. Southwark told me I could report it to the Fire Brigade, but I told them I did not want to waste their time/resources unless there was a problem.

But to answer your question I would complain and ask if they could stop!

[Mustard]

Southwark Council can levy heavy fines for polluting like this. Especially bad when windy. Take some pictures and email them.

[uncleglen]

It used to be (info from a Southwark produced leaflet) that you can have 1 bonfire once a month for 1 hour at dusk and that you are not allowed to burn poisonous stuff like paint and plastic. Southwark used to enforce this- because let's face it if we ALL burned whatever we wanted whenever we wanted the deaths from pollution would soar and our lives would be a misery. These builders are doing this because it is cheap. There are also rules and regs controlling building work- (not DIY) they can only work between 8am and 6pm Monday to Friday, 8am to 1pm Saturday and NOT on Sunday. If they are creating dust (e.g. from cutting bricks etc) they must put netting up to stop it spreading. This info is available from the Southwark website.

Be wary of approaching them yourself because I did that and my car suffered from mysterious petty vandalism for a month or so!

[oimissus]

I have no idea what the legal situation is, but I stick by my dad's rules when it comes to bonfires (and I wish more people would, bonfire smoke is really pervasive!).

You only have a bonfire in the evening.

You only have a bonfire in the evening of a miserable day when there's absolutely no way that anyone is going to have their windows open, their washing out or be sitting out in their garden.

Bonfire are an autumn thing.

Didn't matter how much we clamoured him to, he would not have a bonfire under any other circumstances. Bravo Dad!

[Polmoche]

Thank you all. I complained and the environmental officer actually came out and must have said something. It stopped. And when the "coast was clear" they built another one!

[oimissus]

report it again. Sometimes the only way is to bore people into submission!