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Legal matters

Development trouble - how accommodating do we have to be?

4 replies

ExAstris · 19/02/2016 08:36

PP has been granted for an infill development on our (narrow) street, against the wishes of all the local residents and against the planning policies of the council themselves - the planning officer had to instruct the committee to ignore the parking issue to get it through. It will make parking a hell of a lot more difficult for everyone, as the dropped kerbs + visibility splays for the new houses' driveways take out about a third of the parking available on the road which is currently all full. The houses on this street are period properties, narrow terraces (each house width less than the length of one car + manouvering space, and several houses have 2 cars) with no frontage so the only parking is on the road (and you have to park half on the kerb on both sides of the street). We suggested an alternative entrance to the development which would solve issues, to no avail.

Builder has just knocked on our door and asked DH to move his car as it's in front of the piece of fence/wall they've removed to access the site and they want to get another piece of machinery onsite. DH was about to get in the bath with DC (day off work today) so has had to get dressed and go out to move it. If it'd been a couple of hours later they'd have been out of luck - we're going out, in my car.

Builder was polite enough, but I can see this sort of thing coming up lots over the coming months. There were already pointed words exchanged between another resident and the builders when one of their lorries blocked the street a couple of days ago.

Do we HAVE to move? If so in what time frame? If they're blocking the street do we have any recourse?

TIA.

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Sophie38 · 19/02/2016 09:14

Sounds like a complete nightmare. How did this get through - is someone pulling strings behind the scenes?

I'm sorry I know nothing about the legalities of it but I feel for you.

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smugmumofboys · 19/02/2016 09:23

I'm in no way an expert but Redrow were fined for repeated breaches of the terms of their planning application on a local development. I'm sure that these will be published somewhere. Maybe contact your council's planning office?

The fine was the result of many residents complaining as well as a local action group. The latter was formed due to overwhelming local opposition to the two new proposed developments in an already busy location (think nightmare traffic every morning minus several hundred extra houses). All went through anyway. Hmm

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smugmumofboys · 19/02/2016 09:25

I should have added that the fine was a pittance but big developers don't like bad publicity.

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ExAstris · 19/02/2016 10:47

Sophie I believe a portion of the profit is going to a local group connected to a political party, but couldn't possibly know if anyone involved in the decision is related to either the group or the party. I do know that the council are behind on their commitment to build/allow to be built x number of houses to keep up with expected local population growth, so I believe they've seen this as a perfect opportunity, and it's an infill site so only pisses off this street and neighbouring streets that our cars are going to be displaced onto. We had letters giving us time to object etc arrive late, too, and as I said they ignored their own guidelines to push it through.

It's not NIMBYism, there was a large development on the edge of the village a couple of years ago and that's fine, but this is just going to make life so hard. I'd hate to be the people moving in, too, as their neighbours will automatically hate them.

Smugmumofboys DH has already said he'll be keeping a close eye out for any transgressions.

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