beefybash

Many thanks to all for your responses. We have no desire to have the new structure demolished and have great sympathy for the self builder involved, who seems to have been a little naïve. What we are very anxious to ensure, is that there is no further development of the buildings now retained by the original land owner. I feel that if we could prevent the further development of that land, there is a slim chance that the owner would consider selling it to the self builder at a realistic price, thus ensuring that the overall build is as originally envisaged. Self builder is yet to submit his plans with the compromised site. When he does so I'll post the detail of the application for anyone that's interested. In my view, this is just planning through the back door and I am very keen to try and prevent the original land owner benefitting from his questionable actions. Thanks again.

Hello All, newbie here! I have an issue with a neighbouring property and I wondered if any of you have had a similar experience that could shed some light. The site in question is adjacent to my property and is contiguous to 2 others. Historically (past 30+ years) this site has had 2 buildings on it, which were used for a workshop and garage for the owner who lives in a house on the opposite side of the (adopted) road – ie. not a contiguous property. In 2015, these two buildings were included in an application for a new dwelling on the site, which was approved with the existing garaging and workshop/storage utilised in that development. The development is in a conservation area and won favour by being an eco-friendly and low energy property, buried into a hillside with a grass roof etc., and specifically repurposing the existing buildings as garaging. What then happened is that the land owner split the plot, and sold only the part with the new dwelling to a self-builder, and retained the existing buildings which formed the garaging and workshop in the approved permission. He has subsequently had 2 attempts to gain permission for a dwelling on the remaining part of the site with these existing buildings, together with an appeal, but so far, he has not been successful. The self-builder is now close to completion of the new dwelling, and is about to put through a planning change for the reduced site area, a new garage and other minor amendments made along the way. The planners seem to be accepting that when presented with the application, they will have very little option but approve the amendments and reduced site area, which we find very worrying. Having looked online I have found a couple of references to the ‘red-line’ site area on a planning application as being fundamental and cannot be reduced or indeed increased without a whole new/full application and proper consideration. Both myself and another contiguous neighbour bought our properties post this approval being granted and expected a single dwelling to be built between us. To now find that the same property will be built on a compromised site and potentially another dwelling on the retained land is very upsetting. This particular neighbour’s property is grade 2 listed, which we hoped would carry some weight in this matter. Any thoughts or advice on this would be very helpful and appreciated.