Break an egg. 
Mike,
I know you will disagree, but I can assure you that something being a crime is not in itself a qualification to justify a 999 emergency call and never has been. No police service in the country would accept that it is. A ācrimeācan be reported separately on a non emergency number.
Seems no different to pavement parking which, in my area, police are reluctant to deal with. My suggestion is to approach your ward councillor who will have contacts at your local station.
Are the bricks still there.? 
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Nope, I agree with you. An error in my rush to type. The criteria for that one is that a crime is currently taking place or about to.
One way or another they will be gone by the morning!
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Wonder which Floyd album would fit here?
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It constituted an illegal and immediate threat to the safety of people using the footpath. As such it is my belief that it required immediate action in order to prevent possible accidents. Little point in someone taking action two weeks down the line when it will probably have gone anyway.
As I mentioned before, whether or not you consider it a matter of urgency probably depends on whether or not you know somebody who has suffered serious injury or death as a result of such hazards. They are illegal for good reason - not just for fun.
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Suppose, an hour after me spotting it, an elderly and infirm person, not feeling able to cross the road to safety, had attempted to navigate themselves precariously around the obstruction and had fallen and suffered injury as a result. That was my reason for treating it as an emergency. I believe it required immediate attention to prevent possible injury.
Clearly many here do not agree, and neither apparently do the authorities. So be it. I did what I thought was the right thing to do for the sake of safety. It is indeed sad that the authorities and many here feel the need to berate me for that. What a country.
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Whilst the call centre may have had a go and ditto this forum I doubt youāll get any grief from anyone else whether people in the vicinity or the police. The fact is that your call fits the use case for 999. The fact that the police wonāt then act or that others judge on the basis that itās not what they would have done is ultimately neither here nor there.
When Iāve complained about the call centre taking a similar approach with myself the extent to which they bent over backwards to apologise and recognised that they had far over-reached their role was both staggering and a tad embarrassing. Iāve never had such a complete apology.
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Well done HH! I was just wondering whoād spot that deliberate one first!
Exactly so. Many will not take action in the face of crime of all sorts that does not directly affect them, citing various reasons. Itās frequently these same people who will scream blue murder at the police if they spot a mad axeman in their garden, or if their children are molested by the local peadophile.
Itās the āIām alright Jackā mentality. Until it directly affects them.
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What amazes me is that youāre surprised that people think youāre overreactingā¦ You canāt seriously think that the police should deal with a pile of bricks from a house building, can you?
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When we and several others moved out of our previous address it was noticeable that remaining friends started to complain that, without the pressure of multiple calls to 999 from new neighbours, they were finding that the police reverted as soon as they could to downgrading calls for thirty minutes. Ultimately this did sadly lead to an anrguably avoidable loss of life which was reported nationally. An extreme example but worth noting.
As someone who uses a cane I find these issues daily and, whilst the sheer volume of them can be exhausting, itās also highly satisfying to get stuff changed. I probably tackle 1 or 2 of the daily issues I come across each week. Consequently, our nearby neighbours will no longer park on any pavement I walk and our binmen will actually run back and pull bins up the drive if one of their number is unaware of the requirement for them to leave bins away from the pavement and back on the property they found them.
I have been hospitalised when tripping over unlit street furniture in the dark; colliding with a sign that I had repeatedly asked to be removed and, interestingly, when a builder entered our estate far too fast with a vehicle full ofā¦ bricks, which resulted in said vehicle tipping through 90 degrees and depositing said bricks across the pavement directly outside our house. I didnāt see them in the dark. They drove off very quickly. Wife refused to call 999 so I did. Police had no issue with it whatsoever.
As it happened the builders came with more people and another vehicle to clear up the mess. Suspect they werenāt impressed with the police supervision and the note of a deep hole in the pavement.
Ultimately you get the policing you demand. If you sing force them to uphold the law then they pick and choose. They can be super confident in what they can and canāt do but itās not too hard to show that theyāre often simply wrong.
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Well, as itās a criminal offence, yes actually I do. Iām afraid itās people with your attitude that actually help promote crime, as you are happy to let people commit criminal offences and go unpunished.
It is not your place to judge whether a crime is severe enough to be held accountable for. How dare you make such a presumption. Leave it to the justice system to decide.
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He is not, heās questioning your method of reporting it .
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So if it were a HGV or perhaps a deposited vehicle which caused exactly the same obstruction; would likely be harder to see at night etc. presumably youād see it as nothing to do with the police then either? Thatās a very arbitrary line youāre drawing there for no obvious reason.
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Which I have already fully explained.
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