A resident has reported suspicious activity as a vehicle was parked in the private road with a young guy watching people coming and going to their flats, on the morning of Tuesday 16th July 2019. The car was a dark grey metallic Audi A3 TDI registration plate GF09 NME.

This has been reported to the police and they have logged it as suspicious behaviour.  If you do recognise the vehicle or know the owner and this is just a misunderstanding please let us know. Alternatively if you see anything suspicious please contact the police on 101, or 999 emergency if a crime is being committed.

You may have seen a Police car hanging around earlier today (Friday 31st May 2019). There were reports of a man wandering around the estate in the early hours (6.30am-8.30am), behaving strangely and trying to gain access to peoples properties. He was wearing a light grey jogging bottoms and light grey sweatshirt and looked disorientated.

He approached a number of residents asking if they had a key for Daniel. He was talking to himself and he was walking up and down the private road as well as the main Close.

He later knocked on a door of a resident asking for a key to their next door neighbour’s flat, with the intention of gaining access to the flat. When he was refused a key he proceeded to vandalise property and throw plant pots around.

The Police were called and arrested the man. The Police have asked if we could make all residents aware of today’s incident by reporting it here and they will also make a neighbourhood watch alert with more details.

The police have also said that any sighting of suspicious people, or if we feel threatened, must be reported immediately by calling 999, or use 101 for any non-emergencies.

As part of our ongoing maintenance and from feedback from some of our residents, we decided to install some new signage around the estate to notify people that they are entering private grounds. The pathway seems to be increasingly used by walkers, dog walkers and cyclists as they seem to be under the impression it is public park land owned by the council. This is certainly not the case, the grounds are owned by J.Maidman and managed by us the LCMA and not a public area.

Location of the new signage

The new signage is located near the footpath entrance to Leat Close from Bullfields, and on the far end of the footpath near the bin area, and the bottom garage court. We are looking into replacing/updating a couple more signs around the estate and will keep you posted of our progress.

We hope our efforts will deter the public from using our estate as a cut through and reduce the recent spate of vandalism.

It was minuted in the AGM 2019 last month that we should investigate the misuse of the turning area and try to prevent people from parking there.

White lines are only an advisory notice

We contacted the police who advised us to contact the local council about parking restrictions. We did so and Sawbridgeworth Council then forwarded our enquiry to East Herts Council as they are the ones who enforce parking restrictions. Unfortunately East Herts Council informed us that the white lines, road painted “keep clear” and the “no parking turning area” signs are only an advisory notice and therefore they cannot be enforced.

However, they did say that if we wanted to get yellow lines or parking restrictions added we could do so by contacting Sawbridgeworth Council directly. They warned us that this can be a lengthy process and would be dependent on the budget of the local council.

What to do next?

To request yellow lines and parking restrictions then you will need to contact Sawbridgeworth Town Council by emailing info@sawbridgeworth-tc.gov.uk or call them on 01279 724537.