I just wanted to reach out to those who’ve signed my petition and say a big ‘thank you’. It’s incredibly lonely when you’ve been wronged and are powerless to do anything about it, but today, I’ve felt so positive reading your encouraging comments. Because of you, the petition has garnered over 100 supporters in less than 24 hours! I’m going to build as much momentum as I can, but it takes a small city to create actual change in UK legislation, which is my goal.

Aside from the obvious fact that the public's investment in road adoption should only be a burden if the public use the road, I don’t want to see another person go through what happened to me. Your property - your home, is your biggest investment, and it’s shocking that in one action, the council can change your egress rights and make you feel like a visitor to your own property. I can no longer use my drive to park or place a skip without their permission. Do I now have to worry if my neighbour is going to develop their house to use my drive? Do I have to worry about damage now my forecourt is being used as a turning head? The answer simply is yes.

If everyone could share this petition one time, it might stop this opportunism from knocking on someone else’s door. I hate asking for favours, but change rarely happens without help from others. Please, keep the support coming. The fight to expose this archaic piece of legislation is long and relentless.

In the next update, I will expose more details about this road adoption, including the things the council said and didn’t say that made this adoption successful. I will also tell you what I’m currently doing to protect my property. If anyone wants to ask me questions, email me: coyotes_sugars0c@icloud.com. As I said, I didn’t know this was happening until I saw the adoption notice posted on the road, which could happen to anyone living on a private road. The state of my house and the drive in the photo is how it looked when the council included it in the cul-de-sac’s adoption. There are over 40,000 private roads in England and Wales, so hopefully, my story can reach these people as a warning.

Thank you for your time, but most of all thank you for helping me bring awareness to this issue. I wish you the rare peace of living in a morally intact council!

Best wishes,

Rachel