Neighbours

I dabble (the only word to use) with an app called ‘NextDoor’. It is (in case you’re not yet acquainted) a type of ‘social media’ app, but one focussed on building a network of ‘local’ users for exchanging news, views and, of course, buying and selling stuff.

The downside of giving people a forum for exchanging views is that, almost inevitably, there’s a rise of Meldews.

There’s a chap who lives in a district of Nottingham over there (points in that direction) who, despite being a totally lovely bloke (I’m sure he is really), has taken on an unfortunate demeanour.

He first surfaced on NextDoor complaining about low flying aircraft from the local operational airfield.

I’ll say three things about this:

1. I love the character that low-flying light aircraft give this little countryside village
2. We (the good lady wife her indoors and I) live immediately under the landing/take-off approaches, and
3. I have no sympathy for people who move within 10 miles of an operational aviation facility and then complain about the noise – particularly when the airfield in question has been operational for 91 years (longer than any of the NextDoor gang have been alive)!

To me, the last point is exactly like the people who move out into the countryside and complain about the smell. Or the church bells. Or the mud on the road.

Anyway.

This chap built a thread on NextDoor, largely corralled by him, that moaned on and on about low-flying aircraft. But that wasn’t enough. Lies started to get introduced.

‘They fly over my house at 100 feet’, was one. A quick check of FlightRadar24 proved the lie and showed that the light aircraft actually fly over his immediate area at never less than 1,200 feet, and usually at 1,500 feet.

‘They’re every few minutes during the peak’, was another. Notwithstanding no definition of what ‘peak’ actually meant, another look at FlightRadar24 coupled with a listening watch on 134.875Mhz confirmed that the average (because I still don’t know what ‘peak’ means) is one operation per 20 minutes.

There were other such untruths, but my favourite comment from one of the NextDoor gang was that ‘they don’t even have silencers on their engines!’.

My suggestion that an ‘airport watch’ group be set up to monitor the situation, and to produce reports which we could match with FlightRadar24 data seemed to be unpopular. Can’t think why. Unkindly, it’s been suggested to me that people love a good moan, but I don’t take that seriously for one minute.

Anyway.

Our NextDoor friend has now started complaining about ‘noisy mopeds’ in general and, in particular, about a small group of youths who are constantly buzzing around his neighbourhood ‘after 11pm’.

This thread soon gained ‘me too’ traction. People made allegations of law-breaking. Serious allegations. Speeding, anti-social behaviour, dangerous riding, and so on.

The thread then took a darker turn with contributors photographing 125cc bikes and identifying the riders through registration numbers.

Hang on a minute. Don’t these people know the libel laws? Are they actually not aware that if you identify someone (and a registration number will do) and say that person is a law breaker, but have no evidence to back up the claim, that is libel?

Well no, it seems they don’t understand the libel law.

I stepped in and said that as an owner of very large, 1,000cc bike (not one of these ‘toys’ you’ve photographed), I would be more than happy to ride around the streets where these people live, at gone 11pm, to try and find the culprits.

And when I have tracked them down, I’d be more than happy to give these youths printouts of all the allegations, and copies of the identifying information. I’m sure there’s a handful of ‘no win, no fee’ libel lawyers out there just waiting for the business.

In the meantime I’m going to just kick back and wait. I’m sure these NextDoor warriors will find something else to complain about very soon.