Planning permission refused - but development went ahead anyway?

[janinlondon]

Does anyone know what happens now? The property developers applied for planning permission to divide a beautiful house in our area into nine flats. Both times the application was refused by council. The flats are now up for sale/rent. Is the council in fact a paper tiger? Can anything be done now, in retrospect?? Any positive stories? Pleeeeaase?

I have been fighting a massive development (six storey building built in our lightwell for the past 3 years. Best thing we did was get our local councillor and the press involved. It took a while to find an interested councillor (Tory ones useless but it is a Tory council and we are partly campaigning against the council as well as the developer). Labour backed us to the hilt. Not making a party political point but just don't give up if first one you contact is not interested.

Councillor advised us to put together a petition of local residents for submission to Council which I did (only had 12 sigs as very few residents here but that was enough). Council has now opened an inquiry and developer offering to pay us compensation. Only after a HUGE fight though and many, many sleepless nights.

Also, it takes one person to campaign. I have done all the work on this, spent hours on it, coordinated the whole thing. Compensation to my neighbours and mé will probably amount to around £10k per flat. Amount of thanks I have got from neighbours for taking this on?.......Nothing.

We have that problem margot. Tory council has f*cked up financially and is now selling off assets left right and centre, mostly to the detriment of the poorer areas of the town it seems. The Labour councillors are great but there aren't many of them. And we have a residents association but even so, just a handful of people end up doing everything....not me I'm ashamed to admit but I do lend moral support and the odd bit of leafleting.

Pooka - I'm normally the 'poor planner' on the other side! BTW, private practice salary's not significantly different from public sector - and don't necessarily take account of all the unpaid overtime!

Oh I didn't mean poor as in financially poor. Just poor as in the cringe factor of cross-examination. Recently did my first inquiry since having had children and was absolutely terrified (though was OK in reality).

To be fair, I think sometimes Inquiries are easier than informal hearings because they are more structured and you have the legal representation acting almost as your referee. Also you tend to be better prepared having had pre-INquiry meetings where all potential avenues for discussion have been discussed and worked upon.

Agree completely that the private sector is not the cash cow that some people assume. Personally I never worked in the private sector because of the assumption that extra hours would be worked and the perceived emphasis on billable hours. Wasn't quite sure I had it in me, and post-children certainly appreciated the ethos of my local Council regarding flexible working, working from home, freelancing and so on.

Sorry, I meant probably best to check with building regs to see if they will pursue him separately - didn't mean that it would be part of the planning appeal. Should have posted this earlier - can see you have had lots of advice since. Good luck.

Pooka - I realised that, although there does seem to be a bit of a misconception that there's a lot more money in the private sector.

I'm very lucky in that my firm are very laid back in terms of flexible working etc - I currently work 4 dpw although ds in nursery only 3.5, and when I first started back it was only for 3 dpw.

I got thrown in at the deep end rather recently at a Hearing as I had prepared the evidence for the MD who was the 'planning' witness, to have him pass over to me very early in the proceedings - went fine though, and we won the enforcement appeals.

Don't really think that it makes much difference which side you are on in terms of the cross-examination, do you?