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AIBU?

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Original poster

to think if you don't have planning permission, you should be prepared to face the consequences?

54 replies

ChucksAhoy · 11/05/2015 20:58

Watching Damned Designs on C4 and although the programme seems to be very empathetic towards them, I can't help but not feel particularly sympathetic for those people who have tried to exploit loopholes in order to build their houses without planning permission.

If you're not sure, go for pre-planning advice but for goodness sake don't skip planning all together!

Planning law is there for a reason, and that's not to satisfy the whims of individuals (btw I don't work in Planning, but have been through the process!)

OP posts:
1Morewineplease · 27/05/2015 17:01

Sorry I haven't watched the programme but there's a family near where I live who decided to do a huge amount of work to their property and front garden and had proceeded to carry out all this work without asking for planning permission ... When a neighbour asked about it he replied that he'd apply for it retrospectively ...when asked what about if it were refused .. Response was " well they're hardly gonna knock it down are they?"!!!!

Makes my blood boil! And yes it was granted retrospectively!!!! Grrr!

MrsHathaway · 27/05/2015 17:02

And of course if planning permission had been available the land would have been ten times the price in the first place.

DixieNormas · 27/05/2015 17:08

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

hedgehogsdontbite · 27/05/2015 17:17

They have to knock it down but I think it hasn't been done yet. He was given 90 days to do in April.

miffytherabbit3 · 27/05/2015 17:18

This makes me so mad, all this retrospective applying for permission. I know someone who makes a very good living from doing this on a regular basis. Buys up cheap property and gets permission to demolish and rebuild and then builds double what he has applied for and applies for retrospective permission which to my knowledge has never been refused yet. Makes a mockery of honest people who stick to the letter of the law and do as they are told Angry

Mrmonkey · 27/05/2015 17:29

I live in the village of the over extended black and white bungalow, it is a stones throw from a SSSI site and it really does stand out. It's his neighbours I feel sorry for as they have I live next to him. I don't get how he thinks it's ok and how central beds council let it get as far as they did before doing anything. I really hope he is made to take it down.

Alisvolatpropiis · 27/05/2015 17:38

I felt awfully sorry for the elderly couple with the caravan, that did appear to be nitpicking.

Didn't feel at all sympathetic towards the others though.

netballcrazy · 27/05/2015 17:57

The worst is when the council planning department decides that it is "not expedient" to enforce a breach of planning even after the house owner applied for retrospective permission, lost, appealed and lost again.

Now I have to daily look at the house across from me with half original Victorian sash windows and half crappy, cheap upvc replacements (we live in a conservation area) and nobody will/can do anything about it. As the owner lets the property out he doesn't care as long as the rent comes in.

Oldraver · 27/05/2015 17:58

I think they were all arrogant even the Norfolk Caravan people. They bought their land and did not have planning permision to build or site anything but still went ahead. The council gave them retrospective planning permission for a certain size of caravan (I think as they were Travellers) and they exceeded this. Had they stuck to the original size granted they would if been ok.

Bullshitbingo · 27/05/2015 18:16

A friend of mine is just going through the planning process now as shes bought a doer upper which backs onto parkland (not overlooked). Its been a bit of a nightmare getting a bog standard extension through planning tbh despite the fact that nobody will be able to see it.

Anyway...the planning officer came round recently to look at the house and sign it off. She stood at the bottom of my friend's garden looking at the row of houses, sees that practically all the houses have extensions and starts scratching her head with a WTF expression on her face. Turns out NONE of the houses have planning permission! All old houses, the back of which are completely hidden from view unless you are actually in the garden, most of the neighbours have put huge extensions on.

One of the reasons my friend has had problems getting permission is because there is no precedent in her immediate area, but turns out there is, just not officially Grin.

God knows what will happen now, my friend is bricking it in case the neighbours all have to have their extensions demolished and they hate her for drawing attention to them. But i say fuck it - all their own fault for not doing things by the book.

MayPolist · 27/05/2015 19:09

Bullshitbingo Most rear extensions can be done as a permitted development ie do not require planning permission.
Also an enforcement notice (to tear down building works or make them comply) can only be served for 4 years after the buildingis complete After that you have immunity.

Lweji · 27/05/2015 19:13

Most rear extensions can be done as a permitted development ie do not require planning permission.

Yes, but only to a certain percentage of the original house and there are other constraints.

hedgehogsdontbite · 27/05/2015 19:13

Unless you hide it behind a wall of straw. Then the time limit doesn't apply.

Justusemyname · 27/05/2015 19:15

People across the way built a dormer room. Without permission. Overlooks my garden. Was allowed to keep as doesn't overlook the road Hmm. Planning people must be a bit thick.

HerRoyalNotness · 27/05/2015 19:24

I can understand why people do try and circumvent planning laws. Sometimes they just seem bonkers.

I worked with someone who had bought 30 or so acres which had a small farmhouse on it. Farmhouse was allowed to be demolished, BUT they were only allowed to build the new house to the same footprint. It was very tiny. They ended up putting in a basement for more room, that couldn't be lit or heated, and she used as a craft room. It's not common sense in cases like this, they had 30acres!

If their house had been another 500sq ft bigger than the original, it would have made not one bit of difference to anyone else, but would have saved them considerable cost, and been more useful.

MayPolist · 27/05/2015 19:24

Dormer windows which don't face the street fall under permitted developments too, justusemyname, so your neighbour was quite within his rights to build it without PP

Justusemyname · 27/05/2015 19:32

So why did they get retrospective permission?

It should not be allowed. Who gives a fuck if it overlooks a road but when it overlooks private gardens it is out of order.

TracyBarlow · 27/05/2015 19:39

Everyone on that show makes my blood boil.

That straw / tyre hide man and his 'bats'. Absolute load of bollocks. And he didn't apply for planning in the first place because he didn't know he had to? Okkkkkaaaay. He just kept saying 'I'm not doing anyone any harm here.' I'm not sure he'd have the same opinion if Redrow rocked up and built 100 houses in the next field.

I had no sympathy for any of them.

TracyBarlow · 27/05/2015 19:39

straw / tyre house* man

marshmallowpies · 27/05/2015 19:45

I felt sorry for the bat guy but to say 'we were so caught up in the project we forgot to apply for planning permission' is just silly, no kind of excuse at all. That doesn't stop me feeling sorry for him and his children, it must have been awful for them to see the family break up over this.

Screw Jacob Rees Mogg sneering over bat protection laws, though - those laws are there to protect animals from people who do awful things to them, and the casual attitude of 'oh well people will just get on and get rid of the bats and not say anything' doesn't wash with me. The law is there for a reason, to make an example of people who do stuff like that.

CornChips · 27/05/2015 19:51

A property developer near us built a house and then applied for retrospective planning..... the court case took YEARS AND YEARS and they kept bleating in the local paper how unfair it all was.

I's just been demolished. The entire street turned out with bottles of prosecco to watch.

Takver · 27/05/2015 19:57

It's tricky. I live in West Wales. It's the poorest region in Northern Europe - incomes on a par with southern and eastern Europe. Yet house prices are driven by second home owners on London salaries - which is the richest region in northern Europe.

Say you're a young couple with a baby. Obviously, you will never have any chance of buying a house. Rentals aren't just expensive, but very, very thin on the ground. Most of the time, you'll get a rental for winter, then be kicked out in favour of self catering holiday makers for the summer. Your most likely option then is an illegally parked caravan.

Also, the planning system is generally recognised to be corrupt - not in the money changing hands sense, but in the sense that everyone knows if you use architect X (who - as everyone knows - just happens to sleep with planner Y) you're much, much more likely to get permission.

The planners have no relation to the real world - I've been through the plannign system, and it took two years to get permission for a small barn, despite the fact that we had a business case six inches thick, we were supported by the local town council, there wasn't a single objection from neighbours, and the planners said upfront that they knew once we took it to appeal we would unquestionably win. We have the money and skills to fight through the system, lots of people don't.

Oh, and when we moved here we were told by pretty much everyone in the town that the only way to do anything to your property is to act first, and go for retrospective planning later. We haven't - but I have plenty of sympathy for people that do.

Takver · 27/05/2015 19:58

I should also point out, that we caved in and hired architect X!

TTWK · 27/05/2015 20:06

I felt awfully sorry for the elderly couple with the caravan, that did appear to be nitpicking.

I didn't, I laughed like a drain. Does that make me a bad person?

MayPolist · 27/05/2015 20:54

Planning decisions are made by councillors sitting on a planning committee not planning officers.They are legally obliged to declare if they have any interest in a planning application and abstain from the vote on it.