10 Year Rule and immunity under the 4 year rule.

[IanR]

2 hours ago, ToughButterCup said:

You also say

 

‘...The council cannot therefore use enforcement powers to seek its removal...’

 

That statement is wrong. The Inspector himself mentions in paragraph 38  the section of the Act under which further action may be taken by the Enforcement Team  ( 171 B 3 )

 

 

I'd high-light the two options the Council has, with something like:

 

The Planing Inspector's Appeal Decision has high-lighted two course of action the Council could take. With the original enforcement being against the caravan, no arguments for Concealment were put forward (the caravan was not concealed). But the Inspector found that what was once a caravan, is now a building, so enforcement can still be taken against the structure itself under section 171B(1), since the building was covertly developed under the cover of the caravan shell, which would stop it from becoming immune from enforcement after 4 years. Indeed, the fact that the Council originally enforced against the caravan is itself material, since the building was concealed by the caravan.

 

The Inspector then continues in para 38 to state that "even if" the structure becomes immune from enforcement, a breach of 171B(3) has been implied which allows its Residential Use to be enforced against, for which, as I'm sure you are aware, there is a 10 year duration before it would also be immune from enforcement.

 

2 hours ago, ToughButterCup said:

In relation to the open cesspit at the property, you mention that action against the owner is possible by the Environmental Health Team. While that is indeed the case, you omit to record the fact that the cesspit is unlawful because neither Planning Permission nor Building Regulations Approval exists for the cesspit as required by law. Your office was told about this matter - by me - over a year ago.

 

I'm not sure if Planning Control have any jurisdiction over "drainage" or Building Regs. ie. this may be out of the HoP's remit. I believe the Environment Agency and Building Regs each stand independently from Planning Control. 

[ToughButterCup]

Box of Quality Street on the way Ian. Thanks.

Ian

 

(PS, minus the strawberry ones ?)

Edited January 5, 2022 by ToughButterCup

[joe90]

2 hours ago, IanR said:

I'm not sure if Planning Control have any jurisdiction over "drainage" or Building Regs. ie. this may be out of the HoP's remit. I believe the Environment Agency and Building Regs each stand independently from Planning Control. 

Is this the case? When I did our build the siting of the treatment plant and it’s operation and discharge we’re part of the Building Inspectors remit and the EA also had to give permission prior to its installation. The building inspector noticed that there was no lock on the lid and told me it had to have one so nobody could raise the lid and fall in it. I would suggest an open cesspit was definitely against regs.

[ToughButterCup]

Oooooooooooo yesssssaaa, @joe90 its against Regs awreet.

The point   @IanR was making, I think, is don't give the HoP the excuse to say  '... Not my game squire ...'   by introducing issues not under the HoP's remit.

So, I'll redraft that paragraph focussing on the absence of PP for the cesstank. PP  is (through Enforcement) his remit.

 

BTW, the local Environmental health folk (stink cops)  have been out to sniff the air - and actually wanted to come into our house to breathe deeply. 

 

No point guv, I said. But he still wanted to. More fool him.

In we walked; God luv' im  our  cat had broken wind long and hard - as only cats can.  Bless the inventor of wet cat food.

 

Christ it's bad in here  said Mr Environmental Health.

Mmmmmmmmmm.

 

Peed myself telling the  story in the pub that night.

Edited January 5, 2022 by ToughButterCup

[Onoff]

Just waiting for my half pack of Celcon blocks then I can get the walls up. Still waiting on the Pozi joists so I can make best use of the high ceiling space.

 

 

 

[AliG]

A very interesting thread.

 

As the inspector says, the matter of the use of the building needs to be resolved and there is a 10 year limit on this.

 

However if you do not uphold enforcement to get rid of the building, it might be hard to argue that once a building is there, it cannot be used for residential purposes. Thus I suspect the case is weak here. The fact that there is not adequate drainage might be an argument against residential use, but that could be remedied, although it would cost them.

 

Deliberate concealment seems the way to go. It may be that the LPA considers it quite awkward to gather evidence of deliberate concealment and so is just trying to avoid the issue. I do not know how high the bar for deliberate concealment is, but no doubt the owners will claim you could see the bricks and perhaps importantly they applied to pay council tax. I wonder if the hay bale guy was paying council tax? They seemed to make more of an effort to conceal the building and the fact that people were living there.

 

Getting rid of the cesspit, which is probably the main nuisance, seems the best course of action.

 

It looks like you cannot enforce building regs more than 12 months after the work took place

 

https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200128/building_control/38/building_regulations/3

 

For a normal home, however, the problem would be an inability to sell it and that would force you to comply eventually. I doubt the people living in the caravan care about that.

[IanR]

2 hours ago, joe90 said:

Is this the case? When I did our build the siting of the treatment plant and it’s operation and discharge we’re part of the Building Inspectors remit and the EA also had to give permission prior to its installation. 

 

Yes, my experience is also that Buildings Regs control the installation of drainage, including foul drainage, and for off-grid foul drainage expect it to be in line with EA Regulations. EA then "police" private foul drainage systems, so nothing to do with planning control.

 

2 hours ago, ToughButterCup said:

The point   @IanR was making, I think, is don't give the HoP the excuse to say  '... Not my game squire ...'   by introducing issues not under the HoP's remit.

 

Exactly my thought. 

[saveasteading]

 

 

8 hours ago, ToughButterCup said:

the appellant ...’

 

The Appeal was not upheld in favour of the Applicant.

Is that an intended change of term?

 

cc councillor that is mentioned and your local one if different .

Edited January 5, 2022 by saveasteading

[ToughButterCup]

2 hours ago, Onoff said:

Just waiting for my half pack of Celcon blocks then I can get the walls up. Still waiting on the Pozi joists so I can make best use of the high ceiling space.

 

Your post @Onoff  prompted  me to review what has happened over the last few years.  There was so much goodwill when first we met ...

I helped the owner of the caravan

• move his caravan onto the site 
• shovelled many many  tonnes (10?) of MoT1 off the road outside his property : the delivery driver just dumped it on the road because the owner wasn't in
• helped him pull his cars off the flooded part of the property with my digger
• helped get his JCB running
• helped him fell a tree that was in the way of his BFO walls, but then......

My offence was to be given Planning Permission when his was refused. Am I persona non grata now phhhhhhhhhhhhh.

 

You know folks I have a good mind to buy a beaten up old caravan put it out of sight on our land, surround it with hay bales and then build myself a palace of a workshop inside it. 

 

After four years block it out from within, wait another six years and then Taddddaaaa, a workshop with loo (connected to our digester) wifi (from the house with our spare CAT6 cable) , and water T'd off from just before our water supply goes through the meter. 

 

Oh damn my German heritage. There's zero chance of me doing that. ? 

[ToughButterCup]

35 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

Is that an intended change of term?

 

No, well spotted, thanks.

[joe90]

Copied from the Gov.uk building regulations page on cesspools.

 

The Environment Agency or your local council can make you repair or replace your cesspool if it’s in poor condition.

You are breaking the law if your cesspool causes pollution.

[IanR]

On 04/01/2022 at 09:54, ToughButterCup said:

 

 

Notice the unlawful open cesspit, it hasn't been emptied in 4  or 5 years: the foul liquor floods the field every time it rains. The shed to the LHS of the image is surrounded by foul drain overflow.

 

What actually is this "cesspit" then?

 

Is it just a hole in the ground? or is it actually a structure? I'd missed that you described it as "open".

 

I'd also missed that a Cesspool is not covered by the EA's General Binding Rules, and if it is a Cesspool (that requires regular emptying as it has no treatment capability and should not release to ground/surface water), then it does in fact require Planning Permission, Building Regs, Regular Emptying by a Licensed waster carrier, a minimum capacity of 18,000 litres per 2 users and must not leak or overflow

 

https://www.gov.uk/permits-you-need-for-septic-tanks/you-have-a-cesspool

 

Septic Tanks and small sewage Treatment plants need to abide by the General Binding Rules or have an EA permit (in England).

 

So, if a Cesspool, then another Enforcement opportunity, as well as reporting to EA.

Edited January 5, 2022 by IanR

[ToughButterCup]

Ian , it's just an 'ole, 'ole in the ground. Open to all-comers.

 

Been there since 2014 - look on Google Earth Pro  Image History: you can see it clearly from outer space. It is unlawful to build one without planning  permission, (been banned for a while now)  unlawful to leave it open to the air, and not to pump it regularly.

 

The cesspit leaks like a seive, discharges to the open ground downhill every time it rains, and has done for 6 years now.  Stinks like France on a bad day , but mostly it stinks them out ( they dug it up-wind of their van-house (house-van?).  Basic error that.

I fantasize about popping a  weedkiller-sugar bomb in the middle of it with a delayed fuse, delayed to explode in a strong westerly wind....Their pigs would love the extra protein. From October to March the pigs are knee-deep in sheet in the associated floodplain.   When I have dead rats to dispose of, I throw them over the fence into the cesspit. They float for a bit, I'm waiting for the complaint with something like glee. Eventually the lead with which I force-feed the rats seems to take over. Worthy opponents rats. The shed down-hill (to the left of) from the cesspit is now an island. But if all day every day you are paddling in Scheisse from pigs and humans, you soon get used to it I expect. Bet the inside of that dwell-van hums .... 

 

Trump-like, he has to double-down at every setback now. The screw is turning slowly, but inexorably. He has managed alienate every land-owner around, and will not be able to discharge to a stream.  Even if he applies for  PP (next to impossible now) he has been told that a pre-condition for PP is a satisfactory Perc result. Which isn't happening.

 

He's made the basic mistake of buying an old clay quarry (supplied clay for the canal nearby)  so the water has nowhere to run. Apart from convection and transpiration, water stays in that location. Every year when it rains he has to pump surface runoff uphill to another part of his property.  Which then comes back downhill.

 

To be serious for a moment, how low must your self-esteem be to consider living like that? I actually feel sorry for both of them living there. All they have to do is MTFU and buy a property elsewhere. They've given it their best - its time to move on.

 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, letter edited, tweaked, in the post tomorrow, Recorded Delivery.

[ToughButterCup]

Just a quick update, more for the record than anything else....

 

Its been raining a drop or two over here so our neighbour's open cesspit is overflowing more than normal.  Ever resourceful, he has found a way of getting rid of the  excess foul human waste on his land: he pumps it into his neighbour's field.The problem is solved by a small pump, pushing the slurry up the hillside and into the field.

The  field onto which the pump discharges the slurry slopes down to a land drain, which in turn runs into a pond - the one that our children filled with Great Crested Newts over 30 years ago.

 

Environent Agency to be updated tomorrow morning.

 

I'm thinking about all the pathogens in which the owner paddles every single day. It kind of beggars belief. I mean I know that sunlight, bacteria and oxygen will sort out the problem in the end, but pretty soon the land will not be able to take much more.

 

I wonder what the current Biochemical Oxygen Demand is? Must be through the roof.

[billt]

On 05/01/2022 at 20:51, ToughButterCup said:

II fantasize about popping a  weedkiller-sugar bomb in the middle of it with a delayed fuse, delayed to explode in a strong westerly wind....

 

Blaster Bates, Shower of Shit over Cheshire.

 

 

[joe90]

24 minutes ago, ToughButterCup said:

Environent Agency to be updated tomorrow morning.

Well done,  let’s hope they are better than planners at getting of their asses and doing something !

[saveasteading]

7 minutes ago, joe90 said:

let’s hope they are better than planners at getting of their asses

Generally good people who would like to make the world better, but constrained by under-resourcing and politics.

[ProDave]

40 minutes ago, ToughButterCup said:

Environent Agency to be updated tomorrow morning.

Hopefully with photographic or video evidence of the offence taking place.

 

you might want to inform the field owner of what your nice neighbour is discharging onto his land.  He won't be best please I am sure.

[ToughButterCup]

Yes, video and photgraphic evidence has been taken.  The guy who owns the field was not best pleased when he came round to see it all in 'action' as it were. 

 

I feel like this neck of the woods has been kicked back to 1950s France

Maman: Gaston!  Ca pu la merd ici hein?  [Mother:  Gaston  , it  stinks of shooshoo 'round  'ere]

Gaston:   Beuuuuffff                                      [ Gallic shrug tr. I don' giveafooketyfook]

 

 

Edited January 9, 2022 by ToughButterCup

[ProDave]

15 minutes ago, ToughButterCup said:

The guy who owns the field was not best pleased when he came round to see it all in 'action' as it were. 

I am not surprised because HE does not want to be blamed for polluting the land drain and the pond with sh1t.

[Onoff]

It's unfortunately de rigueur round here for people to drop in a sump pump and take off the "liquid" generally when we have heavy rain. All to save on emptying. Some to$$ers with ad hoc pits will do it in the height of summer. C****! No thought for anyone downwind of them.

 

Like the Wild West still in many respects.

 

The whole place was once know as Bidonville with good reason. 

 

I don't btw. Had it properly emptied a couple of years back. 

 

 

 

[Ferdinand]

On 05/01/2022 at 13:19, ToughButterCup said:

Box of Quality Street on the way Ian. Thanks.

Ian

 

(PS, minus the strawberry ones ?)

 

I have a green triangle tax on all Quality Street traversing this site.

 

Though TBF I'm just back from the Lindt shop.

[SteamyTea]

13 hours ago, Ferdinand said:

I have a green triangle tax on all Quality Street

More of a fine isn't it, tax usually only takes  bite out, leaving you the rest.

I often wondered why they did not make large bars from the same recipe as the green triangles.

[Ferdinand]

41 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

More of a fine isn't it, tax usually only takes  bite out, leaving you the rest.

I often wondered why they did not make large bars from the same recipe as the green triangles.

 

They do.

 

Not sure if currently available.

 

https://en.paperblog.com/new-nestle-quality-street-my-green-triangle-bar-636563/

 

[Ferdinand]

Having caught up on the thread, wishing all strength to your arse and your elbow, @ToughButterCup.