Planning - Anyone had any luck with them.

Hi

These people drive me nuts, total law unto themselves.

All I want is a stupid converatory, but oh no, I have to have planning for it, ok so I submit planning, the lady comes around says it should be fine. 3 weeks later I get a letter saying its been refused because
1, Concerned it meets the boundary
2, Projects more then 3 metres from the house.
3, Dosn't fit the charactor of the property.

1, I have spoken to neightbour and he is happy for me to build on the party wall and we will draw up an agreement to put with our deeds.
2, Well the neighbours is bigger than mine so I can't see the problem.
3, WTF! Its a convervatory not a bloody extension!

I have had to scale down the convervatory and we're trying to go for permitted development rights, but evern that is causing problems.

Who do these people think they are, the LAW! Who regulates them, it seems to me its 1 rule for 1 person another for another, no consistancy.

This isn't the first run in I had with planning, the last house I wanted to put in a garage, but because they refused it because the exterior patteren didn't match the house (even though it would be behind a Fence!).

And they have the nerve to charge for this crap too. These people make my blood boil!.

Right that's better got that off my chest!

 

Lee, my sister is having similar problems and she's decided to ditch the idea (for the moment) because it's just too much hassle.

I think you should phone up Building Control (as far as I know that's who regulates these things) and have a word with them, especially as your neighbour has one. Your local council office should have the number and/or the name of the department you need to speak to.

Isn't it great when you buy a property and are told you can't build/renovate it .

Good luck.

 

Unfortunatly I can't ditch this project, I need the space, the idea is that we can use it for the dining room then I can finally get the lounge sorted and put the hi fi up, yep been without the hifi for 8 months now, that is how long these planning people have been f**king me around, I'm sick of it, probably explains my very bad temper at the moment!

I can understand it when building a new property or extending, but converatories are tempory buildings, they shouldn't need planning AT ALL.

Ya its great when you shell out all that cash for a house and you can't do what you want with it, they'll be telling you how to decorate it next.

 

And of course, it now has to be solar glass [nice little cartel there I guess], so it'll be like an oven all the year round, and you'll want stupid reflectors to keep the sun out! And if they had just let you make it in brick/tile....

I think there is as much chance of reforming these clowns as there is of getting those 30000 cockney civil servants to move to Oldham

 

Why would Oldham want 30000 cockney civil servants. I reckon we should send them to Lincolnshire then they can play with the Cauliflowers

 

Even more bizarre is that every council has its own set of planning regulations. There is no consistency across the country.

Bob

 

I thought you didn't need permission for a conservatory. Just as long as it was under a certain size and had to be 70% glass or so.

 

MO - I thought the same. Certainly when my nan had hers built about 10 years ago, she didn't need planning permission. However, that was with Lewes District Council - it could well vary amongst local authorities.

 

Sorry

Sorry in advance !

These people are only doing their job. I work in a council (although nothing to do with planning) and our dept gets complaints from members of the public all the time. Generally the rules and regulations laid down in the first place are to blame, or archaic tools, but the people you speak to are probably doing the best they can working within these specific guidelines. It may seem one rule for one and one for another, but every case is different, you cannot say just because your neighbours is bigger then you should have yours.

Try to treat who you deal with face to face, with some respect. Ask for the specific reasons you have turned been, and if they could offer any advice about what you can do (think you may have already done this).

I think the general rule for refusing these sort of permissions is because if yours is allowed, then they have no leg to stand on when other applications come in with the same criteria i.e. slighlty larger than normally allowed etc

Ian

 

Ian,
surely if lee's neighbors conservatory is already a fact then a precident has already been set and the planning dept are just being arses for the sake of it.
having done a stint of my collage course at a county council i also know what goes on in there and certainly in the depts i saw there was so much f*cking about and sheer pettiness that i'm not surprised lee is having these problems.
* gets on soapbox. rant on*
when councilors are getting travel and meal subsidies for holding meetings away from the county they represent while child services are so underfunded they cannot do their jobs. thats when i start to get f*cked off with things. if local councils were a business they'd be bankrupt within months the way they are run. it's a farce.
*steps off soap box /rant off*
cheers

julian

 

Julian,

You'll be glad to know that Challenge, Debate and Scrutiny and general Arsing Around is also alive and well in Portsmouth. Rather than get on with things, I've noticed people have to find 1000 ways to debate/argue as to why we shouldn't do something/how there is no money to do it/it's not their job etc.

Agree about the councillors and how some chief officers bow to them like bl**dy lapdogs!

 

it's all about buck passing. if you don't actually do anything you can't be fired for making a mistake and the councils are too PC to fire you for being a useless twunt. therefore you get this never ending orgiastic spasm of buck passing and blamestorming like some sort of hellish game of pass the parcel.
cheers


julian

 

"twunt", "orgiastic" and, "blamestorming"

You're on form Mr Jules!

 

tbh I think this is one of the serious flaws with this country, archaic rules and regs. that cannot adapt to common sense. and people dense enuff to apply them without thinking.
people are so brainless they need the rules as they can't think for themselves, in lots of cases, the rules are wrong, too. dreampt up by idiots, for idiots. I ave little respect for blind rule following where common sense and adaptability should take precedence.
There is a strong case for privatising the whole country, so removing incompetance from local and central govt., and it would reduce milking the public purse, too.
I too have seen what these types do, bicker and have meetings for nothing talking, drinking coffee in nice hotels, and expenses left right and centre. That is a waste of our public money. It needs to end, now.

 

Hum "just doing their job" if they job is to f**k people around then yes they're doing a stearling effort !

But Ian this is what annoys me, I have gone and spoken with them, I've invited them Onsite to discuss the issue and both time they said what I was doing would be fine, but then when I put the application in, they refused it, that is what is getting up my nose, I then talk to them to see what I can do to satify their needs and they give very vague answers. But they don't want my converatory to protrude more then 3 metres from the house, in my mind this is stupid, I'd barely get a table in that, maybe I should have gone and had a full bown extension done, maybe that would have passed!

Our road have plenty of converatories, all of which required planning AFAIK, the neighbour behind has a converatory that spans the legth of their house and goes into a P shape that is more than 4 metres from the house and looks directly on to our house, how THAT got through planning is anybodies guess, though I have my own theory on that, the term "Back hander" comes to mind, and ya I do know of it going on. A friend of mine was talking to a clerk in the planning department and what I learned from that confirms my theory, corrupt as only a government department can be!

Ok you can build a converatory without planning, IF its of a certain size, you get an amount of land your allowed to build on its called permitted development, this is worked out depending on the size and type of your house. Unknown to me the garage we have was build on After the house, thus taking up a large chunk of this permitted development land I had, thus with the converatory I want I had to apply for planning. This is what has taken the time, because the council can't find records of the garage, but they are adminat that is was built after the house, but can't prove it. My thoughts are no proof then no case, but again they think they're the LAW and so I loose.

I have scaled down the conservatory to try to be within the rest of my permitted development land and now have withdrawn my original application to try to apply for a certificate of lawfullness, which will just give me a letter saying that what I have done is legal, but they're still making this as hard as possible. Questioning every measurement to the CM, they have 2 copies of the dam architects drawings what more do they want.

Bunch of bloody "job's worths".

 

Hi

Just a quick up date on this. I have now submitted my intent in writing for permitted development rights, but oh no this wasn't good enough, I have fill in ANOTHER bloody form (twice!) and submit the revised plans.

And now this apparantly has go to through advertising and I will not get my certificate (or whatever) till the 24 Auguest, Well done that's 8 months of messing me around, well balls to them, I'm going to start the work anyway because I'm within my write, I just wanted to go through the motions and get the right paper work, but if its that much hassle, screw 'em.

Bloody paper pushers, never done a 'real' day's work in their entire life!

Lee

 

lee,
i'd be really careful if i were you. it's not unknown for planning departments to insist that works are torn down if things are not 'just so'. it sounds like you are involved with a particularly arsey bunch of little hitlers so i'd not do anything to rile them. unfortunately they do represent the be all and end all in this situation.
cheers


julian

 

Thanks julian I'll take advice and see what my options are, I will get the designer to check the plans I have and if I'm within my development right they can't do anything (again I'll double check that.) your right though.

If I'd just gone ahead and built it anyway from the start they wouldn't have known any different but I try to do the right thing and get it all legal and they make it as difficult as possible, then they wonder why people don't bother.

Thanks for your thoughts.