Any planning experts out there please??! Once planning permission has been granted (and work completed), is there any way of complaining?

[Abelia]

I live in a terrace on the short end of a rectangle of houses - so all backs of properties, gardens etc are in the "inside" of the rectangle, with front doors opening onto the four roads running round the outside of the rectangle.

A few months ago a roof terrace appeared on one of the houses on the long side. It means that the top room in my house is overlooked from their terrace. (As are most of the houses in our half of the rectangle). It is a very high, flat roof on top of third storey of their house, with big iron railings, bamboo woven stuff providing infill and a real eye-sore of black insulation / underlay type sheet all draped around the sides.

I have just looked up the case history on the council website and found that the planning permission was sought when I had tenants in, 3 yrs ago. The planning permission actually cites my house as an example of having roof terrace railings that they will be in keeping with! Er no the top room (lower than their terrace by about 1m) has a narrow Juliet balcony. No roof terrace and totally similar to all the other top room conversions done around here.

Despite numerous objections being lodged by other neigbours, all making much sense about how the application was badly worded, disingenous, also not in keeping etc, invasion of privacy etc, and also in complete contradiction to an application submitted for the same property and rejected only a few months earlier the council gave permission.

I know I am completely late to the game here. I had no idea about the permission until the railings went up a few months ago. I was looking on line today as an estate agent friend came over, saw the terrace and remarked that it must surely be illegal.

Is there anything I can do? At the very least I would like their badly-done black bin liner stylee swags of terrace liner to be removed.

Sorry so long, have tried to give all info.

I would ring planning and explain it to them. saying because your house is mentioned as an example you thought the application would be similar to yours etc etc.

They will probably come and have a look for themselves.

Where I live. a house was built with a really odd roofline and they were made to change it so it was more in keeping. so things can be done

If planning consent has been granted then your only recourse would be on the grounds of maladministration by the local authority - a very difficult charge to prove. The fact that there were objections to the proposal means that the application was almost certainly referred to committee rather than being passed under officers' 'delegated powers'.

Committees are often very contrary and overrule their own officers' recommendations. In view of the fact that a previous application was rejected I suspect that this is probably the case however as Furball states, an informal approach would not do any harm.

It may be that the finished work does not conform to the approved drawings but Building Control will have inspected the work (unless the occipier used an independant Approved Inspector) and should have spotted any deviances.

Best of luck.

Thanks both. I have sent an email and photos as it is a really odd decision they made, and sets a bad precedent. If we all put up roof terraces like this no-one would have any privacy in their bedrooms! I've also asked my councillor for advice as he's pretty good.

The house next door to us applied for permission for a loft conversion. They were refused but went ahead & did it anyway. Now the council fine them for every month they have it up, but the fine is clearly less than the rent they receive on it. I'd be interested to see how far you get given they were actually granted permission.