Ferdinand

I don't think 5.5m works for parallel parking bays. Normal cars (big Estates and Tonka Tanks, never mind Tesla Xs) are up to 5m. Though you could try arguing "enter via the end" for the two outer spaces. There is no defined size for such a parking bay, apparently to allow Councils to set it appropriately for each circmstance. Unfortunately that means arguing against may be like nailing jelly to a wall. There is a defined length for disabled spaces at 6.6m, which is close to a third of what it is now. Ferdinand

Try a few searches on Mumsnet to see if anyone has won the battle. Would think there should be some London conversation there.

Suggest a long pile roller, or perhaps spray if you can.

Bear in mind that if it has been there that long you are likely to have an established right of some sort to drain onto the farmers land, so you could expect to preserve that right and might get a quid pro quo for withdrawing it. (The exception might be if it turns out to be a permission letter, in which case he can legally probably just tell you to move it.) Don't be so unsubtle as to ask for money, but you could for example expect to have the outlet from your treatment plant running the same way, or get him to dig it out with his digger, take some earth if you need it cleared out from your plot etc. Or consider whatever else you need - phone lines overflying, electricity wire through etc. Could you just buy a bit of land for a bigger garden? ATB. Ferdinand

You can go in and inspect the file in person - I think without charge. Obvs depends on Corona, but if the inspection is free and they try and charge you for online docs could argue that it should be free as normally inspection would be. Or try an FOI.

My only q there is does PIV work downstairs to upstairs? Never tried it so I don’t know. ATB anyway. F

Just imagining when @pocster is 6 feet underground. It'll have a bloody glass top and you'll be able to go and stand on it, and look down at the skeleton and the balloon. The epitaph will be "Here lies @pocster Silence is golden" * with a scrawl across the bottom in a ghostly script "PS Does anyone want to buy ..." (Sales agent: Doris Stokes) Ferdinand * - Full stops left out of epitaph to avoid emotionally traumatising any millennials or Generation Zs reading the site.

I'm going to take a different view here. Partly because I believe most of it, but also to argue devil's advocate to help you think about your case. (Aside: take some readings with a suitable light meter now - so you at least know what levels should be OK for your daughter). I think that some planning measures apply to *main* windows, which may limit the case you can make to planning. If you consider the current amount of light you get through the side windows to be adequate, then you can probably wholly mitigate the impact of this extension with things under your control ie you may not need to be quite so concerned about the extension. I am making that assumption because there are things currently reducing the light level that you can address but have not done so. That you have not maximised existing potential will make it harder to argue that loss of light from the extension is a material threat. From what we have, I would suggest these are: 1 - That huge hedge which looks to be 9ft high and very long. If that is part yours you can remove it or reduce the height to say 1.5 or 2m. 2 - The glazing bars and surround-frame in those windows take up about 40% of the area. By putting in single panes and mirrors in the reveals and different non-blocking blinds you could probably nearly double the amount of light coming in. 3 - That bike shed is a blockage to some light - albeit minor. 4 - You seem to have about 15% of the windows blocked with a solid blind - surely these should be above the opening for max benefit? If your N argues from the current position, the impact of the extension will be reduced because these blockages exist now. That smaller impact is in your neighbour's favour, and I would argue from his side that it is obvious that D does not need more light in the room because you have had the capability to provide it for X years and have voluntarily chosen not to do so. I would then say that since no one knows what the benefit of those mitigations would be but it is probably far more than any conceivable impact of my extension, it is absurd to restrict my extension since you have not done the maximum under your control. I would say that has an 70-80% chance of winning the argument with the planners. If I was being sharp-clawed, I would add that the priority in your design of your windows was obviously not to maximise light coming in (glazing bars etc rather than a single clear pane), so why the sudden fuss now? I would put the cost of changing the inner frames of those windows to be a single pane design to be about £300-400 the pair, which is eg less than a report will cost. I think for you you need to decide whether you actually need his extension restricted if you do the changes under your control, or whether you are better to eg modify the windows and trim the hedge, and have a dialogue about minor adjustments they can make which will give you a push to get more light. I would be looking at things like asking him to make sure that any side windows he has do not look into yours so that you can have clear glass (ie make sure they are not lined up), to make sure that any fence is not ginormous, and maybe encouraging it to be rendered white or cream so that it reflects more light. You could request these as PP conditions (don't think you will get that). If you are going down the "stop it" route, then I think you need to consider maximising the potential benefit to your D under your control *now* to spike his argument. Not trying to tell you what to do - but there may be other ways to skin this cat that are easier to do and involve less potential of conflict, and you may even get a warmer, fluffier relationship with N. Ferdinand

Were I to apply the ratio in a modern house design, I think it would be to things I look at. eg proportions height:width of atria or windows, or maybe double doors. Or the ballroom ! Bit more detail here, albeit with added kartoffel: https://www.mymove.com/home-inspiration/decoration-design-ideas/how-architects-take-advantage-of-the-golden-ratio/ F

Why not make a feature of the reveal or threshold in something else? The last set of doors I did I put down a piece of varnished Sapele. Not expensive. And yo7 can turn it over later like your grandfather’s doorstep.

I'm sorry that you seem to have got a bad 'un, but I'm pleased that you are getting advice from CAB and TS. I though TS did not do "consumer" any more, but nice to see that in some places they do. At the end of it all it may be worth noting down in a diary or somewhere what you can take from the experience in terms of the way to approach it next time, as a reminder and a way of feeding back the experience into learning. You will get better at this over time ?. If you post it on the thread at the end and we can comment. Don't worry too much - we all make cockups. Was up at a tenant's yesterday where some houses are being built next door, and remembered how I helped the developer get rid of the condition to build an acoustic wall to protect my t's house because the very temporary fence I put up whilst they were building was so good that the Planning Inspector decided an acoustic wall would be of no extra benefit. (Should have removed the fence when I knew the inspector was visiting). F

Just like all our suits.

The other structure like that that we all meet every day is the system of paper sizes. Each size has half the area of the next size in the same ratio, and A0 the biggest has an area of 1 sqm. It lets you eg auto-calculate in a spreadsheet the weights and therefore postage cost of letters just from the gsm of the writing paper and knowing that there are 16 A4s in a square metre. Minus the stamped envelope. Basic knowledge for mailshot marketeers so they can annoy you at least expense ? . But that works on the square root of two.

1.618. I thought you were starting from that from the title ?. We did it in O Level Maths iirc. It is the ratio of a rectangle with sides where the leftover bit has the same proportions as the original if you cut off a square. Draw it up and you see that that relationship lets you construct a decreasing series of rectangles where there long side of the next smaller one is the same length as the shorter side of the previous one, and that allows interesting progressions of shapes based around eg spirals. Have a play with some graph paper and cutting up rectangles in that proportion - should give a better feel. Mathematically you start with 1.618 by 1. Cut off 1 and you get 1 by 0.618. And 1 divided by 0.618 is 1.618. Geometrically if you draw a rectangle like that, you can visually see a pair of simultaneous equations that let you calculate it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio F

What happened to my thread?

At least I didn’t point out that there are 7896 photos of those gates. And one of those gates and a girl.

To narrow the island you could fit wall units one side, if the heights work.

if it is to be liveable do you not need to meet Building Regs? (Sorry)

https://www.harlechhouse.com

I would leave the cut corners because they are interesting and distinctive locally. And I like that they are quietly prominent.

Unfortunately that would also take the wall.

It's a very thirsty plant, so I have been feeding it big healthy drinks of glyphosate. Winning but slowly.

Aha. A Tesla Tonka. Yes - I'll give you that it is even fatter than mine. As Clarkson would say - you can very nearly get a whole American in it. ?

Yes - my Skoda Superb is an inch wider than a Tesla 3, and it currently has very minor scratches on 3 out of 4 corners. One reason why I am waging a genocidal war on next door's ivy that came over the wall is because it deceived my parking radar and made me scratch my bumper.

I'll need to make mine a bit wider to perhaps 3.5m - limited by the amount of straight all I have to slide it behind. I quite enjoy having the postman coming to the house, and people looking and dropping in. A few on my road have solid gates, and the different times they are left open for is interesting. One up the road which is never open is a recently retired couple, and is never open - and is actually covered in composite cladding rather than wood.