Tracey Gardner

Can we please ignore the fact that the guy in this case is a builder? Nobody seems to want to answer my question, about whose responsibility is it to consult the statutory undertakers when building under permitted development rights? There is no more that I want to tell anybody, as I said the case refers to my friend's sister's neighbour and that is my only connection with the situation. It's the question of whose responsibility is it to consult the statutory undertakers when building under permitted development rights that interests me. This particular case just brought the question to mind.

OK let's put a bit of a twist on this situation as I'm not getting answers to my question of when development takes place under permitted development rights, who is responsible for consulting the numerous bodies that the local council would have previously done? Let's say that the house was purchased 40 years ago by a married couple and the husband alone dealt with the house purchase. The husband is now dead and the elderly widow wants to build a single storey extension to provide a ground floor bedroom and bathroom. She would have no knowledge of any of the information that was made known to her husband by their solicitor at the time of purchase. The extension is permissible under permitted development rights and she hands the design and build to a local builder. So here again is the $64,000 question. When development takes place under permitted development rights, who is responsible for consulting the numerous statutory bodies that the local council would do for an normal planning application?

I've just been told about an interesting situation. The neighbour of my friend's sister is a builder and lives in a bungalow. He is in the final stages of adding a single storey extension to the side of his property, the roof is on. The gas board came to do some work in the road outside his bungalow, totally unconnected to his extension. The gas board workers were shocked when they noticed his extension as he has built it over a high pressure gas main. I understand that the builder claims that he had no knowledge of the location of this gas main. However he has been told that he must demolish his extension and he is taking legal advice about challenging this. The question that it raises in my mind is, in this case who was responsible for consulting the statutory authorities on this development? If he required planning permission and made an application to his local council, then the local council as the planning authority had a responsibility to consult with numerous bodies including the statutory undertakers. But if as I suspect, this extension fell with the relatively new permitted development rights, then the builder did not need to apply for planning permission but just needed to comply with building regs? If this extension has been built under permitted development rights, then who is responsible for consulting the numerous bodies that the local council would have previously done? I can find nothing on the internet to cover this eventuality, but I presume that in the case of permitted development rights the responsibility must fall to the householder or their agent? I did find a one-liner which said that the householder would have invalidated his house insurance by building over a gas main. Has anybody got any thoughts or knowledge of a similar situation? Many thanks Tracey