EXCLUSIVE Inside Britain's most BITTER school-run row: How grandfather has been fighting 'selfish' parents and 'useless' council for 11 years... but finally the battle might be over
A grandfather locked in a never-ending parking war against school-run parents has lost a battle to turn his him into a 'migrant hotel'.
Furious John Walsh claims to have spent £7k on an 11-year solo crusade against 'selfish' mums and dads using his street as a rat run.
He has sent more than 200 letters to his 'useless' local council in Chatham, Kent begging them to install speed bumps, bollards, gates and signage to crack down on nuisance motorists who he says have ruined his life.
But after a hard-fought campaign resulted in silence from council chiefs, Mr Walsh launched a bizarre quest to turn his home into a HMO in an effort to get revenge on the council and his neighbours.
The pensioner believed potential anti-social behaviour and anxiety caused by future tenants at his tidy suburban home would give his 'wokerati' enemies the ultimate payback for their lack of support and ridicule.
He told MailOnline: 'After ten years I'm f****** fed up with it. I've been mocked and ridiculed enough, I don't really care anymore. The parents don't give a s***, they're selfish b*******.
'I'm not a NIMBY, I'm a working class person who has worked hard all their life who thinks he deserves a bit of peace. Why should I put up with the world's traffic?
'I want the council to think: 'F*** it, let's put in a couple of humps to shut him up'.
'I'll be moving to Russia at this point, I've got a Russian wife. It's like England was 50 years ago, I'm not even kidding.'
John's ordeal began in 2014 when he contacted Medway Council's highways department about the behaviour of motorists and condition of Lambourn Way, the road he has lived on for decades in the Lordswood area.
He alleges that parents of children at St Benedicts Roman Catholic Primary School - which has around 210 pupils - were a 'constant nonsense', blocking drives, obscuring vision for motorists and parking on the pavement at drop-off and pick-up, causing major issues for residents.
'I had a stroke three years ago, my wife drove me to hospital and we were stuck on our drive for ten minutes because a car was parked across it', the 72-year-old claims.
Other issues include what he claims was a substandard road surface full of potholes and the street being used as a rat-run with cars racing down at around '40mph' which he says creates 'deafening' noise and adds to the traffic.
Sick to the back teeth and wanting to simply 'live in peace', John brought it upon himself to lobby the council.
He requested changes be made to the area, including the installation of parking measures, such as road gates and bollards to prevent noise, disruption and access issues.
But the grandfather-of-15, whose detached five bed home was recently valued at £478k, said he was met with a wall of silence.
He remained resolute as he found himself confronting parents on the school run, filming their poor parking and even being told to 'f*** off' by people allegedly dancing on his drive.
The issues culminated in 2022 when, along with 84 other signatures from neighbours, he submitted a petition urging officials to resurface the road, which stretches around 250 metres.
He wound up at the council's regeneration, culture, and environment overview and scrutiny committee at the end of February last year but was quickly dismissed.
The council argued their traffic survey, carried out over 220 hours during school holidays at a cost £10,000, proved no work was needed.
They also dismissed John's concerns that Chatham residents would use Lambourn Way and adjoining Knole Road as a rat run to dodge traffic on North Dane Lane and Albemarle Road, which are both arterial routes.
John branded the exercise as pointless and evidence Medway Council 'don't have the money or can't be bothered' to deal with the concerns of residents. He believes they are more interested in spending 'hundreds of thousands on DEI projects'.
'When a whole road of people, with very few exceptions, sign a petition that they want something done and all the council does is ignore it, you haven't got a democracy anymore have you?', John, a father of five, who restores old 1970s Honda CB motorcycles, said.
'We were strung along for months and months and months, it's just councillors doing what they want.'
Last year, as tensions between John and Medway Council hit breaking point, he announced plans to turn his house into a House of Multiple Occupancy and start a 'migrant hotel'.
He said the move was a 'leverage' threat to get the council to pay attention to him and his concerns, and perhaps play them at their own game.
Some of his neighbours, however, take a different view on how the saga has unfolded.
'I read what he was writing and thought it was all really over the top - that's just my opinion', says Richard Thurston, 77, who has lived on the road for over 40 years.
He added: 'The school was here before him. The parents start arriving at 3.20pm, 15 minutes and they're gone. I've been blocked in once or twice in 40 years.'
Another neighbour branded John a 'well known whiner' and 'NIMBY', an acronym for the phrase 'not in my back yard', considered a derogatory term to ridicule local level anti-development campaigners.
While one resident laughed at John's 'idle threat' of turning his home into a migrant hotel and said his behaviour was 'just attention seeking'.
While acknowledging the school run parking is 'atrocious', they added: 'You move here, you know there's a school on the road. You check out where you live. If you don't like it, just move!'
Another local added: 'From my perspective, I've lived here 20 years. There are problems with parents with parking. The issue is an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. It's all over the top. It's common knowledge the school is there. If you live
'I have been blocked in a couple of times. I've made it known to the school. Yes it's annoying but it's down to the council to enforce it. It's a minor inconvenience. It's not a regular inconvenience. It's annoying but it's down to the council. I haven't supported any petitions.'
Another resident, who also wished to remain anonymous in order to keep the peace on the street, added: 'When I bought the property I knew there was a school. We've been blocked in a couple of times.'
But some do sympathise with John, including Mrs Freeman, who said: 'I am definitely in sympathy with him. People park right up to my drive, I have had great difficulty getting out.
'I used to have to leave at 2.30pm to avoid being blocked in. I have been hit side-on by oncoming traffic. It is a problem. However parents do not intentionally block people's driveways, I feel they have no alternative. I don't want speed bumps because they're a real pain. They damage cars.'
'It has inconvenienced me to leave much earlier. But they don't have much option.'
Hitting back at the accusations from neighbours, John said: 'Quite a lot of people around are what you might loosely call professionals, lawyers and other useless wokerati people, who don't make anything and don't do anything, just work for other people, they can call me what they like.'
Asked why he doesn't just sell up and move, something many residents who spoke to MailOnline suggested, he added: 'Why should I have to move because of an intransigent bloody Council.'
But the prospect is not totally out of the question and he admits the eleven year ordeal left him and wife Irina considering something along the lines of an A Place in The Sun-style lock-up-and-leave villa in Spain or Italy to spend the winter in.
His frustration has grown so much about the 'state of the country and where it's headed' that Irina's motherland of Russia is also on the cards.
To claw back some control over his ordeal, John has spent £600 installing a cherry laurel hedge around his drive to cut noise and give some privacy.
He said: 'It's to buy back my privacy. We have dog walkers who piss up the lamppost. You've got no privacy here. You've got everybody and their dog looking at you.
'Out of sight, out of mind.'
A spokesman for Medway Council said: 'Medway Council takes the concerns of residents seriously, and makes every effort to respond to issues raised in petitions.
In response to the petition led by Mr Walsh, the Council undertook a range of work, which included conducting numerous surveys to investigate traffic movements in the area. The surveys were carried out during school term time (June 2023), so school traffic was captured, and the outcome of this work was reported to the lead petitioner following conclusion.
'The matter was considered at the Regeneration, Culture and Environment (RCE) Overview and Scrutiny Committee in February 2024, following referral to that committee, and was discussed in full. This petition was therefore taken very seriously, duly considered, and followed democratic process.
'One element of the traffic study, conducted in response to the petition, investigated the impact of introducing a single point closure at Knole Road, which was part of the petition request. The study also considered the likely impact of displaced traffic, and the impact on vehicle speeds.
'Once completed, the study did not identify clear benefits in terms of network capacity or road safety of restricting the use of Knole Road.'
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