‘Do not sue’ Part II: stories and leads wanted!

Posted by Ben Lee, NANM director

In our last blog post John P Houghton and I floated the idea of an Easy-Waiver (loosely based on what you’d sign to hire a mountain bike, go paintballing etc). We were also inspired by the Social App concept created by David Wilcox. It’s intended to help the public get on and do things like mow a grass verge, clear a patch of derelict ground etc which hasn’t happened – but where the owner of the land is worried about liability or health and safety.  There was a brilliant example of this in Dudley the other week which made the national press. Someone offered to mow the grass on a steep bank (which the council said it cd no longer afford to do) and was told by the council they could not, on the grounds they might injure themselves.  The story was quite negative - portraying an intractable problem.

So we drafted something up and with help from the Big Society Network we found a lawyer to take a look and help us fine-tune it.

Here’s the latest version http://www.neighbourhoodmanagement.net/downloads/Takingresponsibility2.pdf

We’ve shared it with the Dudley neighbourhood group connected to the residents featured in the orginal press story and they may try to use it.

But do you know of any other stories like Dudley where there might be a person or group also interested in the App/Waiver?  If so then please get in touch!