Stephen Crowe

Kent highways did a safety report and told Sevenoaks Planning that both a vehicular and pedestrian splay must be a ‘condition’ of any approval. KCC also stated that they would not give approval unless both splays complied with the regulations and gave references with drawings. Sevenoaks decided that they knew better, ignoring the regulations they passed the application with the serious safety issues and then lied stating that KCC had no objections. The case went to the Ombudsman and SDC were found guilty of the violation and injustice to me. Unfortunately Sevenoaks doesn’t give a s##t and refuse point blank to change anything. KCC are on my side but apparently have no power over SDC even though they are the Highway engineers. I have the emails both post & Pre approval from KCC to Sevenoaks stating that the Pedestrian Splay must be added but SDC instead have just blocked all communication from me stating that I am obsessed and wasting their time. It’s their fault, they have been found guilty, all the evidence of their incompetence has been submitted and yet I am the one that has to suffer.

Kent County Council sent an email to the planning case officer 6 days prior to the approval date. In the email was the drawing of the Pedestrian & Vehicle Splay and the highway officer told the Sevenoaks case officer that the drawing submitted had serious errors and the fence line had to follow the regulations as shown in drawing given by KCC. This regulation had to be a ‘Condition’ of approval or KCC would not approve. Someone higher within Planning overrode KCC’s Condition and the planning was approved without the Pedestrian Splay. Even though I was persistent and the Ombudsman decision said that Sevenoaks were in the wrong, they have no powers to force them to do anything. KCC are also on my side and I have an email from the head of highways Simon Jones, stating that the Pedestrian Splay must be adhered to before approval, SDC stated on the Approval that KCC had no objections. An approval is a legal document and SDC lied on it. The case officer told me prior to approval that SDC make their decision based on KCC’s Highway advice as that’s not SDC’s job, so what idiot overrode KCC? The restrictive Covenants are by the original developer and are the same for all our properties. The Covenants do not allow any building on your frontage, my neighbour has built out completely on his front and also on mine. Strangely you can only enforce a Covenant if you own the land so I can only legally have the fence removed from my boundary land. The boundary is very definitive and my side wall / his fence, are entirely on my land. Getting someone in authority who will listen to me has been impossible. Sevenoaks take the easy option by blocking any communication from me, my MP refuses to get involved even though SDC lied to her when she did communicate with them initially. Even the Department for Levelling up made it impossible to complain when it’s them that over see LPA’s. And yes, this has totally destroyed the past 3 1/2 years of my life because I am right, I’ve been proven right but no one in authority will listen, even solicitors want money up front before they will talk to me!

My neighbours new fence actually breaks the restrictive Covenants on both mine and his property as we can only replace a wall with another wall and neither of us are permitted to build anything on our frontage. His new fence is on my frontage.

The drawings I have are mine and my neighbours deeds, I also have the 1970 planning approval. Reference points are obviously the house position. I also have photos of the original steel fence post position at least 300mm into my neighbours garden. The original fencing was the centre of the boundary which actually gives me more land than I have.

I have detailed original drawings from the developers with the plot dimensions, also the plot dimensions of my neighbours plot. I also have copies of the original planning approved drawings for my development which shows the original position of the wall. The wall was and should still be covered by the restrictive covenants on my property.

I own the land and the entire boundary from the rear of my property to the highway. I had to rebuild part of the wall because my neighbour's landscapers made it unstable and on the point of collapse because they lent fence panels and posts against it which broke the 'back' of an already unstable 50year old wall. Any structure on the boundary is on my land.

I can prove land ownership 100% as dimensions etc are in my transfer document which are part of my deeds.

A Pedestrian Splay must be 2m x 2m taken from the pavement back. A vehicular splay is take 2.4m back from the road. What I should have ended up with was a dogleg adjacent to the pavement with nothing above 600mm for the last 2 metres. The set back you see is only the Vehicular Splay which steps back less than 600mm back. There should infact be no fence at all on the last 2.5m according to my restrictive Covenants and my neighbours fence has also been built on my land.

This post does relate to my previous one regarding my local Planning Department.. The question is: Do I have a legal right to demand a Pedestrian Visibility Splay? The highway design regulations state that a 2m x 2m Pedestrian Splay must be installed where my driveway meets the road following the fence line. When my neighbour built his fence all the way down my driveway and completely obscured any visibility of the road, Sevenoaks Planning were told by Kent CC that both a vehicular and pedestrian splay must be adhered to as per the regulations. I have the email from KCC to SDC Planning stating this but SDC decided that they knew better and ignored the ‘Condition for approval’ . Consequently I have my neighbours fence on my land with no visibility of pedestrians when exiting my driveway.. Apparently the Council says I do have visibility, but my X-Ray vision hasn’t kicked in yet! This has been going on for nearly 4 years now but the Sevenoaks Council refuses to give any explanation for their maladministration and Kent CC refuses to back me up and enforce the regulations even though it is their job to do so!

1. Fence completed before any planning was applied for, SDC did not request retrospective and allowed several incorrect drawings to be submitted and then approved the final one that had so many errors even the Ombudsman could not believe it had been passed. 2. I have the emails from Kent CC to the case officer sent 6 days prior to approval stating that the drawing was wrong and even supplying the regulation drawings but these were intentionally ignored. 3. I have an email from the head of Kent Highways stating that they were waiting for SDC to enforce the Pedestrian splay before they would give approval. Stated as a 'Condition of Approval' but ignored by Sevenoaks. 4. Even during the complaints procedure KCC told SDC again that the Pedestrian Splay must be enforced but Sevenoaks then stated that the splay was there and wrote their own version of the regulation to tie in with the errors on the approved drawing. 5. Only more recently it has come to light that a fraudulent Certificate of Land Ownership was accepted by SDC even though I had submitted my 'Transfer Documents' which shows I own the land. SDC DON'T CARE! 6. Sevenoaks were found guilty of the injustice to me but have refused point blank to accept any liability, they have also restricted all communication from me which is actually illegal as they are Public Servants and accountable to us the public. They still won't speak to me! The only department higher than the LPA is the Department of Levelling Up but I have found that to communicate with them is near on impossible and they shut my case down with no notice or explanation even though they had done nothing!

Yes the splay is a Highway issue. Kent CC Highways instructed Sevenoaks DC to make the Splay a 'Condition' of approval but someone (and I know who) told the case officer to ignore the regulation and lie on the approval saying that KCC had no objections. Yes I know about Judicial review but I knew nothing about this until it was past the six weeks. SDC knew the time limit and purposely delayed responding to me.

Concrete Posts and I want him to replace it with the wall he demolished which is part of my restrictive Covenants.

Actually I have hardly slept worrying about this for the entire time. I have had no help from Sevenoaks DC and they now refuse to communicate at all. My MP Laura Trott is useless and also refuses to get involved even though Sevenoaks lied to her and gave her false information. Police say 'don't remove it' as the neighbour may react aggressively, go down the legal route.

The first informal process is to inform the said person of the encroachment and give him the 30 days before a solicitors letter, unfortunately on the 29th day I had a visit from the Police as he had accused me of intimidation!

The LPA gave my neighbour Planning Approval knowing that the land was not his to build on. He submitted a fraudulent Certificate of Ownership which should make the approval null & void. The LPA don't care and refuse to revoke the approval. Sevenoaks Council are guilty of Maladministration and proven so but they refuse to admit liability. KENT CC gave the instruction for the regulatory Pedestrian Splay but also refuse to enforce saying that they have no power over SDC, this is rubbish as SDC are not Highways engineers and yet they have purposely ignored the highway regulation. I would love to just demolish the fence but apparently the Police say it could constitute criminal damage, even though he demolished my wall to put his fence up.