planning I am deeply deeply angry: so I need your advice, please

[Stones]

4 hours ago, TerryE said:

You then have to do some minor material amendment because the EO catches you out after a neighbour raises an enforcement objection; your application is then turned down, and the whole development turns into a crock of shit.

I think this point applies equally to the middle way suggested above as well as the nuclear option.

 You are going to need all your energy for the build, I think pursuing this right now would be a detrimental distraction.

Build it right, then fight!

[ProDave]

This "one rule for me, one rule for next door" thing also apples to building control.

I had to jump through hoops to find a drainage solution that worked on my plot due to a road, a burn, and regulations saying how far things should be from both,  I see my neighbour has just put his treatment plant in, not 2 metres away from the burn.  Either he has dropped a b*****k or he has a different set of rules appled to me.

[Jeremy Harris]

Worth remembering that once you have PP, you have PP, full stop.  They cannot withdraw it, and if you do submit a new application the outcome of that CANNOT undo the the decision notice you already have.

This means that the "submit another application" option can only, as a very worst case, cost the application fee, nothing more.

 

[ToughButterCup]

1 hour ago, Stones said:

Build it right, then fight!

@MrsRA agrees with you completely.

But J's 'Middle way' appeals a good deal too. 

Sleep on it for a few nights. No rush.

[Declan52]

Feelings get hurt every day of the week in every job of the week. 

Are you best buddies with any of the neighbours as in if the invite for a BBQ missed your step would you be sad.

In life look after yourself and your family everyone else can form an orderly queue and wait to be helped or offended either one won't really bother me which one they get. 

[Jeremy Harris]

15 hours ago, Declan52 said:

Feelings get hurt every day of the week in every job of the week. 

Are you best buddies with any of the neighbours as in if the invite for a BBQ missed your step would you be sad.

In life look after yourself and your family everyone else can form an orderly queue and wait to be helped or offended either one won't really bother me which one they get. 

That's a good point, Declan. 

I bent over backwards to keep all our neighbours happy as best I could, and in the main it worked well.  One neighbour has, though, just taken the piss, if I'm honest.  I changed the design of our retaining wall (at an additional cost of around £8k to us) because he wasn't happy with gabions or Permacrib.  I had budgeted around £3k to replace the broken and rotten three bar post and rail timber boundary fence with a more robust and secure timber boundary fence, but he insisted I build a stone wall, topped with a timber fence, which cost another £3k over the budget. 

Since then he has constantly moaned, first about the ridge height being too high (we had the council in with a surveyor and it's 90mm below the limit in the PP).  Then it was over an alleged "promise" I'd made to make some stone steps up his garden (nothing at all to do with our build - he came around and asked if he could have some left over blocks and I said yes, which he took to mean that I was going to employ someone to build steps up his garden with them!).  The last moan was about the poor quality of the soil infill behind the retaining wall, which is frankly rubbish as I paid to have a few tonnes of imported high grade topsoil to replace the rubbish clay that was removed. 

It seems that the more I did to try and keep this bloke happy, the more he moaned.  Eventually, just before Christmas, when he came around to have another moan and get me to try and sort some more work out in his garden for him as he could see we had a landscaping bloke in, I lost it, told him he'd added thousands to our build, delayed us by making us use money we should have spent on the house and had been taking me for a ride for the past couple of years.  Funny thing was he then smiled, shook my hand and said, "well, it was good while it lasted" and wandered off.  It was only then I realised he'd set out from the start to con me out of as much as he thought he could get away with.  His wife has been around three times since and keeps apologising for him.....................

[Nickfromwales]

I'd have knocked his fackin teeth out. What a complete prick. 

[Nickfromwales]

Ian. I just wrote something heart felt, then the auto save on this forum decided to erase it for me. Ill retype in the morning so please don't order any 'hits' until then, ok?

[ToughButterCup]

6 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

Ian. I just wrote something heart felt, then the auto save on this forum decided to erase it for me. Ill retype in the morning so please don't order any 'hits' until then, ok?

[jack]

Agree completely with Terry.

I'm someone who tends to get extremely annoyed by unfairness or injustice.  I once took a day and half off work to attend a hearing regarding the return of £30 of my rental deposit because the estate agent involved was wrong and was being a dick (the actual hearing was 1 minute, because the other side didn't actually bother attending on the second day when they actually got around to hearing my case!)

However, at the time, I wasn't trying to build a house.  There are so many more constructive things you could do with your time and energy that won't make you even angrier or risk relationships with neighbours and the council going forwards.  What happens when you inevitably need to do something slightly against the rules during the build?  For example, we had to have a couple of hiabs unload through the lower branches of a tree with a TPO.  And we took down a section of tree protection fencing early.  If you've annoyed your neighbours and the council, you've potentially generated a set of spies with a grudge, and an enforcer with a grudge.  

What happens if after all the pain and energy you lose?  What if you think it's unfair that you've lost?  

I think there are battles to have and those to avoid.  You'll have plenty of battles during the build, many of which you can't avoid.  Consider saving your energy for those.

That said, if you do decide to go for it, I wish you all the very best.  

 

[Ferdinand]

If going the finish-then-complain route. you need to bear in mind time limits for maladministration etc claims.

I don't know what the limit is with Councils.

Side note: Jeremy, how did your complaint re: the bods who damaged your verge turn out? I remember your JP contract slapped a stop notice on it, but I don't know what happened.

Ferdinand

 

[Jeremy Harris]

32 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

Side note: Jeremy, how did your complaint re: the bods who damaged your verge turn out? I remember your JP contract slapped a stop notice on it, but I don't know what happened.

Ferdinand

 

This was only resolved because I prevented any access to the area by that notice.  Various phone calls and emails to the council were just fobbed off until the contractors turned up on site late in the morning, saw the signs and rang me as my phone number was on the notice.  As it happens I hadn't gone over to the new house that morning, mainly because I wanted to sort out the problem here, so when they rang I just walked out and chatted to them.  They were nice enough, showed me the instructions they'd been given and they showed that the highways bloke had misled me, by saying it was nothing to do with them.  They rang him to say they were blocked from accessing their equipment, or the job.  He then rang me to ask if I'd let them on to our land.  I said no, not until I have an undertaking from your department that you will reinstate the land to it's original condition.  He then had something drafted by their legal people, emailed it to me, I agreed to it and let the blokes sort out the mess.

The contractors were actually very good, they did a good job of putting things right, made sure I was happy with what they'd done and said they'd come back the following day and turf the area and that they wouldn't sign off with the council until I was happy.  The apology from the council can only be described as grudging.  They did apologise, but suggested I should have fenced the area to avoid confusion.  When I replied that they had put a condition on our planning approval that prevented that area from being fenced, they didn't bother to reply.

[Ferdinand]

2 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

This was only resolved because I prevented any access to the area by that notice.  Various phone calls and emails to the council were just fobbed off until the contractors turned up on site late in the morning, saw the signs and rang me as my phone number was on the notice.  As it happens I hadn't gone over to the new house that morning, mainly because I wanted to sort out the problem here, so when they rang I just walked out and chatted to them.  They were nice enough, showed me the instructions they'd been given and they showed that the highways bloke had misled me, by saying it was nothing to do with them.  They rang him to say they were blocked from accessing their equipment, or the job.  He then rang me to ask if I'd let them on to our land.  I said no, not until I have an undertaking from your department that you will reinstate the land to it's original condition.  He then had something drafted by their legal people, emailed it to me, I agreed to it and let the blokes sort out the mess.

The contractors were actually very good, they did a good job of putting things right, made sure I was happy with what they'd done and said they'd come back the following day and turf the area and that they wouldn't sign off with the council until I was happy.  The apology from the council can only be described as grudging.  They did apologise, but suggested I should have fenced the area to avoid confusion.  When I replied that they had put a condition on our planning approval that prevented that area from being fenced, they didn't bother to reply.

Thanks.

[ToughButterCup]

3 hours ago, jack said:

Agree completely with Terry.[...]

What happens if after all the pain and energy you lose?  What if you think it's unfair that you've lost?  

[...]

That said, if you do decide to go for it, I wish you all the very best.  

Thanks for all the replies, and the good wishes.

I am not thinking of this issue in terms of Salamander Cottage winning or losing. I am thinking about fairness and the newts. They don't have any advocates. And while it is more than possible to argue that the law is itself stupid - GCNs are very common round here - the haphazard way in which, on the face of it, the law is being interpreted is symptomatic of sloppy thinking and poor personal and institutional practice. And many round here grumble, but do nowt. I do not begrudge my neighbours anything. I reserve my annoyance for people who are paid to do a good job, but don't. 

Excellent organisation need cost not a penny more than its lazy, sloppily organised partner.

[ToughButterCup]

1 hour ago, Ferdinand said:

If going the finish-then-complain route. you need to bear in mind time limits for maladministration etc claims.

How do I find out what that time limit is, please?

[Ferdinand]

1 minute ago, recoveringacademic said:

How do I find out what that time limit is, please?

I think you would be best to ring your council, or perhaps another council, and ask for the complaints team. Check that it is a national rule.

Or perhaps citizens advice.

I would refuse to identify myself if sounding out the rules, or use a pseudonym if another council. They will try hard to be fair and straightforward, and usually succeed, but I would not risk it myself .. just in case.

There may also be something in a Council "Complaints Procedure" if you look.

Ferdinand

[Jeremy Harris]

7 minutes ago, recoveringacademic said:

Thanks for all the replies, and the good wishes.

I am not thinking of this issue in terms of Salamander Cottage winning or losing. I am thinking about fairness and the newts. They don't have any advocates. And while it is more than possible to argue that the law is itself stupid - GCNs are very common round here - the haphazard way in which, on the face of it, the law is being interpreted is symptomatic of sloppy thinking and poor personal and institutional practice. And many round here grumble, but do nowt. I do not begrudge my neighbours anything. I reserve my annoyance for people who are paid to do a good job, but don't. 

Excellent organisation need cost not a penny more than its lazy, sloppily organised partner.

Bear in mind that, in all probability, the difference in applied policy between your own planning application and that of the sites around you is unlikely to be deliberate.  My experience has been that in local government cock-up from incompetence or indifference is far, far more likely than conspiracy.

If I was a betting person, then my money would be on your planning officer having recently become acquainted, or re-acquainted, with the law protecting wildlife at around the time your application crossed his/her desk, whilst whoever dealt with the other applications may not have had a recent experience with this bit of law, so just forgot about it.  It's very likely that this was a desk-officer foul up, that wasn't picked up by the planning officer that signed off any of the decisions, in my view

[ProDave]

Re different rules for adjacent plots.

The council tried to impose a visiblity splay requrement of 90 metres (which I could not meet) and required me to "demonstrate control" over the visibility splay, which would have meant negotiations with two neighbours. when I pointed out a plot 2 doors don the road was granted permissionwith only a 60 metre splay and no requirement to demonstrate control over the land, they changed mine to the same.