Hole

[Vagrant]

Is there any legal limit on the size of hole one can dig in one's garden?

[fredpuli47]

Not in itself;there are no legally defined measurements for a hole in a garden, so far as I know,. But you might face an action if you cause next door's house to fall down by weakening the foundations ! And the Queen (The Crown) has first claim on mineral rights, so if you strike oil you won't be getting all the proceeds. The rights of the Crown are based on the common law principle that all land belongs to the monarch and we are only allowed to have some kind of 'hold' over it ( which right of ours has been tinkered with by statutes so that even our 'free' hold is not always what it seems). I suspect William the Conqueror was responsible for that idea.

What are you planning to do with the hole ? Remember that you can't take it with you when you move.

[factor-fiction]

Environmental laws may require you to dig another hole of the same size to bury all the soil you've dug out of the original hole.

I wonder if there's any limit on how deep your hole can be.

[ChuckFickens]

If you manage to get your hole to much over 40,000ft the guiness book of records would probably be interested.

[bushbaby_de]

If it is more than just moving a bit of soil around to build a patio or pond you might find it constitutes an engineering operation under planning law, which requires planning permission - what are you planning to do exactly?!

[Vagrant]

fred - I wasn't planning to actually do this - it's just that if I did, I'm pretty certain that once I got beyond a certain size - depth, in particular - I reckon the council would get interested, send a jobsworth round, and then struggle to find an actual law I'd broken.

I s'pose if I went deep enough, I'd probably break Australian immigration laws ...
I was also wondering what would happen if I got deep enough to breach an oil pocket and cause a similar leak to the one in the Mexican Gulf ...

[boxtops]

what, like this ?! http://www.bbc.co.uk/...gland-surrey-10791702

[mrs_overall]

If you do decide to dig a very deep hole that theoretically could fit my lardy mother in law, give me a shout

[boxtops]

Mrs O - lardy is your MIL? :-)

[mrs_overall]

Oh damn, lardy will probably go off on one now

[Hopkirk]

I think this counts as too much

http://www.guardian.c...08/communities.uknews

[webbo3]

bet it wont be as big as this.

http://www.usmra.com/photos/bigpit/003.jpg

http://www.usmra.com/photos/bigpit/004.jpg

http://www.usmra.com/photos/bigpit/005.jpg

Flights over it are banned because of the suction caused by the size and depth of it.

he world’s biggest hole is located in Russia. It is actually a diamond mine in Eastern Siberia near the town of Mirna Mirny at 525 metres deep and a diameter of 1.25 km.

The suction from the hole resulted in several helicopter crashes and therefore flight above the hole is now prohibited.


Dave.

[lardhelmet]

Not me Mrs O. You MIL sounds gorgeous!

[Vagrant]

Biggest hole I've personally seen is an open cast mine at Garzweiler, Germany.
(Roughly) 10km long, 5 wide, 1 deep.
Dug by the 18,000 ton bucket wheel excavator known as Bagger 288: http://www.google.co....1&ved=1t:429,r:15,s:0
http://www.google.co....21&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0

[mrs_overall]

Yep, my mother in law should fit nicely in that one

[webbo3]

heres a link to the hole on google earth.

http://www.crookedbra...lds-biggest-hole.html


Dave.

[webbo3]

Vagrant, that is one big digger.



Dave.

[bushbaby_de]

Well i guess I'm the jobsworth and I posted whilst you were writing your response so you obviously missed what I wrote. The relevant law is the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (as amended)

[webbo3]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGk4AKOwJbc



Dave.

[fredpuli47]

bushbaby, which section of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 mentions ' engineering operations' (or anything like that) ? Must my quick scan of the Act on the Statute Law Database doesn't produce any such provisions. What head do such operations and, specifically, digging a big hole, fall under?
Vagrant , you may find a jobsworth from the local planning authority enquiring what you are doing.Section 171c of the Act enables nosey parkers from the authority to demand answers about what you are up to, just in case what you are doing is some sly development e.g digging foundations for a house or preparing the land to build an office block on it. And, of course, mining operations fall under the Act but since you aren't digging for that purpose you are in the clear.

[fredpuli47]

" Must say my quick" not "Must my quick". I do wish we had an edit function !