Do I shout at them ...??

[PeterW]

So.... 

 

Submitted the NMA application via the planning portal at 08:59 on 1st Nov. Anyone familiar with it will know that you can't submit until you have paid... Receipt from council payment system duly received for the same time and date for £195. Portal shows they accepted it into their system at 13:27 on 1st Nov ...

 

..... and then silence ....

 

Letter turns up today, dated 10th Nov, saying they cannot progress the application "until the fee of £195 is paid".... WTF..??!!

 

They have sat on it for 10 out of the 28 days and now say they haven't had payment, despite it being impossible to submit on the portal if you haven't paid ...!! 

 

Now I have two choices - I either politely advise that they have had it with the payment since the 1st as the Portal doesn't allow submission without payment and expect an answer by 29th November within timescales (and send proof etc), or I send the proof and just ask them if they can nicely please do what I paid them to do nearly 2 weeks ago ... 

 

The downside is that if they don't do it in time, I miss another 4 weeks as we are due to start groundworks in a week or so, and if they don't approve one of the changes we will need to rip two walls down which means additional foundations (it's a conversion / rebuild) and that's added cost and a potential redesign internally ....

 

I need alcohol ... 

 

 

[Barney12]

I feel your pain. We've just had exactly the same situation. Another two weeks lost.  

We are now being told that we need to wait 28 days for a decision. 

 

........and I have had several pints of Jail Ale before writing this!!

 

praise the lord for beer.  

[Construction Channel]

Pester the hell out of them, I wish i had when i was messing about with planning (ended up taking 4 years to go full circle and resorted to PD)

Phone them in the morning, and if they still haven't acknowledged it just keep phoning them and possibly send a few emails for good measure. 

I'm sure they can find the time between cups of tea and checking Facebook to actually do the job they are paid to do.

 

If in doubt send an email to their superior, stating times dates and how the lack of correspondence will affect you, that was the only way I got anything worthwhile out of them.

 

P.s I don't like planners

[joe90]

Nor do I, I know I have just won my appeal but it has taken two and a half years and thousands of pounds, not to mention the stress. Pester the Life out of them, I am fed up with jobsworths thinking they can do what they want because of their interpretations of the rules. As a tax payer they are in your employ, don't forget it. 

[nod]

11 hours ago, Construction Channel said:

pester the hell out of them, I wish i had when i was messing about with planning (ended up taking 4 years to go full circle and resorted to PD)

Phone them in the morning, and if they still haven't acknowledged it just keep phoning them and possibly send a few emails for good measure. 

I'm sure they can find the time between cups of tea and checking Facebook to actually do the job they are paid to do.

 

if in doubt send an email to their superior, stating times dates and how the lack of correspondence will effect you, that was the only way i got anything worthwhile out of them.

 

P.s i don't like planners

Great advice. I recently had the same experience, rang them twice per day

 

Eventually was told by planners that they would prefer to deal directly with our agent, a very young Architects assistant

I replied I bet you would

Fired up by members on this forum

I intensified my efforts

and just like that all delays and objections were dropped and a commencement notice was issued

One member commented playing with people's lives

Never a more true statement

  Gary

[PeterW]

I just don't get the randomness of it all though ..!! They nearly insist on you using portal and then have systems that don't work ....

 

The amusement will be that I am actually listed as the agent for a couple of reasons so it will be the "agent" chasing on behalf of the "client" anyway... 

 

I see a fun call on Monday morning..!!

[TerryE]

Peter, I think many of us have similar tales. In my case the enforcement officer noted our front door didn't match our submitted detail. I explained the background, and she told us to put in a NMA to regularise this.  "A formality" was the phrase she used.  We suggested that we discuss this with our planner first, but she then said the the LPA procedure published online was out of date and planner would only be allocated on a per case basis. So we submitted the application and monitored the portal for 3 weeks looking for the planner to be allocated, so we could discuss the application.  The first that we heard of his identity was when the allocated planner sent us the NoD rejecting the application.  I had an email exchange which I tried to keep friendly underlying that we had chosen the door reluctantly because of supplier constraints discovered during their site survey, and that the front door couldn't be seen from the road.  His response was that any change to the house frontage was non-material in his view and it didn't matter that the door couldn't be seen from the public highway, because callers to the house would see that it wasn't in the style that they wanted! 

 

A waste of time and £195.

[MikeSharp01]

How was this resolved, Terry, in the end or is it still ongoing? 

Edited November 12, 2016 by MikeSharp01

[TerryE]

Mike, it hasn't been.  Still a stand-off.   The EO has been round twice since.  The first time he didn't even notice the door, the second time he spent some time looking at it -- as the workmen told me, I wasn't there.  It's f***ng stupid in my view.  I doubt that they'd bother with an enforcement order.  If they did we'd just appeal and with the correspondence exposed to 3rd parties, it would be just far too embarrassing for them -- however, they can also refuse to sign off the build so we'd be left in a hinterland. 

 

Given that our Internorm door sits about 140mm back inside the stone skin, our current plan is to buy the cheapest Wickes external door that we can and mount it in (temporarily) front of the Internorm door opening outwards, so that from a planning perspective it looks just like the drawings.  Who says that the front door must open inwards?  Once it's signed off we'll remove the temporary door.  Bloody ridiculous if you ask me.

 

[joe90]

Don't talk to me about planners!!!! Personally I would take them to task, you could always do the wickes door trick if that failed.

[PeterW]

So after assurances on Monday that it was resolved and it was their problem not mine, I've had a "standard" letter stating that its going to take them until the 12th December to review and comment !! So basically they are making me wait 6 weeks....

 

I feel a call coming on today !!

 

 

[ToughButterCup]

Good luck with that.

I find a simple way of making your problem 'real' to administrators is to say something like;

 

" If you were in my shoes, knowing what you know about the internal workings of your system, how would you resolve this particular problem"?

[Onoff]

My elder brother is a barrister (who was locum barrister for a local LA) and with his guidance I successfully fought and won a nasty parking ticket issue with another LA. Basically I had provided all the necessary documentation to contest a fine (I broke down) but they came back saying as I hadn't provided the supporting evidence (AA report) they were doubling the fine and it went on to the point of them threatening debt collectors. I started a Stage 1 Complaint with them that basically pointed out they hadn't followed their own rules. Even after I'd started the complaint they kept doubling the fine. I also took them to the Ombudsmen and they dropped the case sending a grovelling letter etc. Have they in your case "failed" on promises etc at any time or have you been given conflicting information? They really change their tune if you can show up their systems.  A concise record of times and dates is needed to go at then like this ideally. I'll happily run it by my brother if you think you have a case.

[PeterW]

So the exact wording is....

 

(and bear in mind this took them 9  days to send me the original letter, and 10 minutes to respond via email....)

 

"Apologies the reason for this is because the application did not load into the back office system which is connector from the portal to our planning software here at the council and so was manually created with any of the normal documents, I will see that this sorted asap."

 

So they accept it was an issue with their systems ..! The portal shows them downloading it on the 1st November at 13:20...

 

[joe90]

1 hour ago, Onoff said:

My elder brother is a barrister (who was locum barrister for a local LA) and with his guidance I successfully fought and won a nasty parking ticket issue with another LA. Basically I had provided all the necessary documentation to contest a fine (I broke down) but they came back saying as I hadn't provided the supporting evidence (AA report) they were doubling the fine and it went on to the point of them threatening debt collectors. I started a Stage 1 Complaint with them that basically pointed out they hadn't followed their own rules. Even after I'd started the complaint they kept doubling the fine. I also took them to the Ombudsmen and they dropped the case sending a grovelling letter etc. Have they in your case "failed" on promises etc at any time or have you been given conflicting information? They really change their tune if you can show up their systems.  A concise record of times and dates is needed to go at then like this ideally. I'll happily run it by my brother if you think you have a case.

Slightly off topic but I am in a similar case with inland revenue, I retired in 2014 and started taking my private pension, since then they have told Me I failed to file a tax return which I believe I did. They have doubled and doubled the fine despite my appealing. They did however work out that I paid ( they took) too much tax so have sent me a cheque. Still waiting for a reply!

[Barney12]

1 hour ago, PeterW said:

So the exact wording is....

 

(and bear in mind this took them 9  days to send me the original letter, and 10 minutes to respond via email....)

 

"Apologies the reason for this is because the application did not load into the back office system which is connector from the portal to our planning software here at the council and so was manually created with any of the normal documents, I will see that this sorted asap."

 

So they accept it was an issue with their systems ..! The portal shows them downloading it on the 1st November at 13:20...

 

 

I think this may uncover a general disconnect between the portal and LPA's as ours said exactly the same thing. Oh and my 28 days was up this week and still no answer.

 

Lets face it; government and IT do not exactly have a great track record! Well unless its for wasting billions of tax payers money.

 

I have a step brother-in-law who is a senior finance manager for one of the (many) government project teams in Capita. The stories he's told me over the years make me want to spontaneously combust!

[TerryE]

As per my discussion above, the portal issue goes both ways.  When I had my NMA turned down, one complicating factor was that they hadn't uploaded the contact details for the allocated planning officer and given that he didn't contact me, I didn't know who to contact -- until I was notified of the refusal, and by then it was too late.

[Barney12]

On 17/11/2016 at 11:57, Barney12 said:

 

Lets face it; government and IT do not exactly have a great track record! Well unless its for wasting billions of tax payers money.

 

 

Another 12 days have passed and our non material ammendement is still in the system. We're well over two months now compared to the supposed 28 days. This week they said "We've got it, we're processing it but we're giving no guarantees as to when it will be completed. We have limited administrative resource" 

 

They are unaccountable and appear to not give a crap about the supposed timescales. 

 

We just sit and wait. Could be days, could be weeks. 

[PeterW]

Isn't that now outside the allowed time or have they written asking for an extension ..??

 

I rang the planning office last week and had a reasonable discussion with the planner - I hope that it means something may be forthcoming at some point in the next week ..!

[Barney12]

Just now, PeterW said:

Isn't that now outside the allowed time or have they written asking for an extension ..??

 

I rang the planning office last week and had a reasonable discussion with the planner - I hope that it means something may be forthcoming at some point in the next week ..!

 

Theyve not asked for an extension. They're just effectively saying "tough".

The problem is we've got another full application going in after this ammendement (which is related to solar PV, another long story) and I'm worried about kicking up a stink and then digging their heals in. 

[Temp]

We had a nightmare of a time getting pp for our house but some years later we had reason to see things from their side when a planning application for a wind farm was submitted. The planning officer allocated was brilliant. It took him awhile to decide the application should be refused but the department had virtually no budget to fight the appeal. That meant he was basically relying on the local action group to fund things like professional photo montages showing the impact from key places and an independent landscape expert. The bill for this sort of thing runs into many £tens of thousands. 

 

Once the appeal was over "our" planning officer quit working for the council and went to work for a private company, no doubt one that advises wind farm developers as he had now got lots of relevant experience. Great loss to the planning department. 

 

I can see why planning departments want planning application fees to be representative of the actual cost they incur.

 

 

 

[Barney12]

Well today we finally received our grant for the non-material amendment. The letter confirms:

 

"Amendment to siting of roof-lights, front entrance detail and addition of patent glazing"

 

which is absolutely fantastic. WELL IT BLOODY WOULD BE IF THAT WAS WHAT WE HAD APPLIED FOR! It has absolutely no bearing on our application at all. They've clearly mixed up two applications. The only thing that's correct on the letter is my name address and original planning application number.

 

You could not make it up

[Temp]

I've never heard of that happening before. I wonder who got your permission? 

[Barney12]

15 minutes ago, Temp said:

I've never heard of that happening before. I wonder who got your permission? 

 

Who knows. Our planning process has been a comedic farce!

I would laugh if it was funny

 

 

[Ferdinand]

We had a cocked-up title on the Council website for something.

 

To me sounds like an error adding a descriptive title to the record when entered. Or perhaps a Spreadsheet line shift error and there are dozens of them created when importing  . 

 

If it has the correct number and address on that should be fine imo. It may just need the number in fact.

 

I assume you are keeping stumm and taking it as a yes. 

 

Ferdinand

Edited December 5, 2016 by Ferdinand