ToughButterCup

Here's a suggested strategy Bite back. Hard. Calmly. Why? Silence may result. Fail silently. Why? Passive aggression jangles the recipient. It will make them fail you... And that's not so bad is it... Plan your exit. Why? Calamitous change makes people suspicious Network Why? You won't be the only one who suffers the same fate. Read the book Stop Pissing Me Off - get it on Amazon.Lots of help there. Leave with good grace and simple politeness. Why? Because one day you'll meet those barstewards again. It's a very small world.

Do as much research about the planning consultant as you do about the local area and housing developments.

I still struggle with those two words (my native language is German) . So I had a quick look and found this. No wonder I'm still struggling with it. I mean it's not far off the confusion I feel when I listen to plumbers talking about irons and olives .... or @SteamyTea and his Killerwots

A 30 second search found ....

The best we can do is speculate. And thats about as useful to you as pub chat. Any posts about planning permission on this website are - at best - inexpert comment. May I suggest you research your LPA website for similar Planning Applications network among local estate agents using a mapping program, look at your area in detail and see if you can see similar housing development(s) If your area has a Local Plan, read it in detail. then get out and about and have a close look at housing developments in your area. See if there are other properties (no matter how old) that are in a similar physical position and when all that's done, consult a well regarded local planner and ask for advice. I suggest you work through the suggested list in order because by the time you talk to a planner, you will need to be able to talk about the locality in some detail. Put another way, it will be harder for that planner to fleece you by offering bad advice. Good luck! Ian

Well I've got it wrong then haven't I... Nowt new about that. I'll dig out the plans and post them here. I bet I've got the terminology wrong, rather than the drain being a construction error.

Ah, glad it's you @saveasteading ... It's a 400mm wide trench with a standard perforated pipe in it. Covered with inch stone. It runs all the way round the house and discharges to a fairly steep bank. It works well. Or did when I last looked. SWMBO has covered the bank with greenery. I'm told its purpose is to prevent frost heave and is standard in all new houses. I'll have a look and see if I've got any photographs of it during the building of the foundation.

Ugh..... How stoopid can I be? Actually the right question is - how knackered can I be? Thanks very much @ProDave

YettaNuther fine mess I've got myself into..... And it was all going so well. My first bit of block laying, my first bit of proper wall backfill. Feeling right pleased with myself until I came to continuing the wall round the corner .... Here's my wall - the bit that works Next job.... get the wall to go round a corner. How hard can that be ( to quote @Construction Channel ) ? Here's the job ... marked out in yellow And here's the twist ..... see the red iron bar stuck in the ground? Well it took next to no effort to get it that deep. (600mm) Why? Because the iron bar disappeared into the Heave Prevention drainage channel. And that's just (200mm) below where I was planning to put the wall. Oh how I wish I'd taken @jack's advice and taken many more photos during the build. My question is : which of the five options below should I take - Compact the earth as normal and then lay the foundations as before and build over the top of the channel (the wall is only four courses high - light as a feather) ? as above but put rebar in the foundation ? make the foundation wider than the drainage channel ( by -say- 500mm) ? avoid building over the drain (by moving the wall either closer to the house or further away) ? knock the house down and start again? I tell you I felt like taking the fourth option once or twice recently.😑

Couldn't agree more. If only @Pocster would stick to the subject, the world would be a better place innit?

But all the learning you did in the early iterations will stand you in good stead later on. No planning is ever completely wasted .

Erm, ours is starting the ninth build year this October. And I have enjoyed every minute 😑

How on earth do you recover from that? Our wall collapse pales into insignificance by comparison. And as for @Pocster's little glazing episode, well.... It's honesty like this that offers us all valuable perspective. Thanks very much.

Working while in pain. Juicy pain. Ceiling lights out of line. Battening for cladding out of line. Skirting badly fitted. Sloppy fitting of airtightness tape. Selling my digger.

Faced with a similar problem, I just knocked on the door and asked the owner. Lovely header-stretcher bond

@Dave Jones said it best: their hate is free. It's a displacement behaviour - they've FekAll to lose have they? It's a gratis Insult Opportunity. Stuff 'em. Sleep well.

But I have fallen into the trap of going into a meeting with 'professionals' without having thoroughly researched the likely answers.

What on earth does ...subordinate to the main dewelling house ... , and .... genuinely subordinate .... mean ? If, as @IanR above hints, subordination does not refer to size, then where is subordination defined - or explained? Except - I suspect - in the mind of the LPA Officer. I smell an easy Appeal win too.

What does the product guidance document say?

Can't you just hear the LadysThatLunch table talk.... " Ey, hev yoo walked parst that dredful heys ... yoo kney the won thets being bilt ? "Oh ya ... I mean just think of what its doooing to heys prices. Dredfool. Go round your locality with a camera and Photograph every site that has scaffolding up for as long as , or longer than you - and ask whether the LPA has made similar requests of those sites Tell them firmly that the '... potential ...' that they identify has absolutely no basis for complaint in law. Nobody is being harmed. Nobody has lost money. No injury has been caused. Everything has the potential to cause injury. If I had had those points levelled against me, I'd appeal the decision, and if the appeal is denied, I'd wait until the day before they take action ( probably six months later) and then start work on doing the absolute minimum: If needed, get the HERAS sorted out. Thats it. Fookem PS, presumably the cars would be OK if the house had been built - so why is there concern now? Know what, .... I'm quite cross on your behalf.

Can you let us know what the Council have asked you to do, and post a photo of the site as it is at present (not an old photo) please? That would help us help you. The council are only saying that they intend to ... we will consider ... what they should ask you to do. That hints at the possibility that all they are doing - at present - is thinking about it. I bet they haven't been anywhere near the site. But now they can reply to the complainant saying that they are dealing with the matter. And possibly that'll be the end of it. In a similar situation, I'd wait for the letter detailing what they want you to do and by when (make them do some thinking) go round other sites and photograph the mess that's there respond asking them how your 'mess' is worse than the images of other sites and wait for the response ONLY THEN ask for a meeting require an itemised list of the works required At the moment there's a high likelihood that an LPA official (Enforcement Officer?) is merely doing the minimum required to get the issue out of the IN tray. Understandable these days....... Make them 'fail' you.

We are not expert Planners (or if one of us is, she is - sensibly - keeping it quiet). In my considerably inexpert opinion, there are sufficient ifs and maybes in this case to warrant expenditure on a professional opinion. I follow your logic. You need to find out from someone who knows the extent to which a garage can be considered part of a Dwelling House - and not merely ancillary to the enjoyment of that Dwelling House. One way of finding out for yourself would be to review similar Applications and developments in your area. The LPA will have a database of applications you can review. In this kind of -what appears to me to be - finely balanced question, I would always err on the side of caution. What is to be lost by asking your LPA?

Iterate. Start somewhere - anywhere in the cycle. Ooops too expensive. Replan But that means we can't [...] Replan Oh look, I found a really much cheaper way of [...] Replan @Onoff does one of his brilliant posts and that makes you Replan @SteamyTea 's latest screed of numbers and thoughts makes you realise you haven't thought about [...] Shit ! Too late, con't replan But with a bit of a compromise (replan ) we could [...] @nod posts his latest build numbers and you get depressed because he's a Whirling Dervish and you aren't ( me neither ) Argggghhh, runin' low on money ... Replan And then you get to DIY MAX. Welcome to the club baby! Eight years in to our build and the iterative cycle is much smaller, and less consequential now than it ever was. But it still happens every day. Start anywhere at all. Just start.

Look at the General Binding Rules carefully. If you meet those regulations then that's doing it 'by the book ' Our BCO could not have been less interested. Annoying to pay for a professional's disinterest. But hey ho.....

Ok, fair enough, but don't buy a second-hand car from him or anything that looks vaguely like glass , especially if the glass has footprints on it.