Ecology and anger. Bedfellows.

[ToughButterCup]

I'll keep this short and sweet. Judge for yourself whether my anger is justified.

 

In order to obtain planning permission, we had to have an ecology desk study , a phase one and two ecology survey. That study found that, within National Guidelines, great crested newts were in danger. Finding that out  cost a couple of thousand.

 

After planning permission was awarded we needed to implement the Action Plan under the terms set out in our permission.  Cost? a further several thousand. I'm so angry, I can't bear to look it up.

 

In the blizzard of local applications for planning permission - and by local I mean 400 meters - the following occurred;

• Applicant  No 1 took our survey (published online - not by us, but the LPA, (Wyre Borough) and used it as their own. No permission was asked.
• In response to Applicant No 1' Wyre Borough's ecologist suggested that instead of the measures we had to take, No1 merely needed to put up a sign saying the equivalent of 

Seen a newt? Kiss it and put it in the grass

• Applicant No 2. No need for a survey
• Applicant No 2's second application, no need for a survey
• Applicant No 2's third application, no need for a survey
• Applicant No 3: - application for permission to build within spitting distance of a pond which I had to have surveyed - so I know for rock bottom certain contains newts (GCNs), was told to put up a sign saying

Seen a newt? Kiss it and put it in the grass

 

The system is sick. Ecology has not got its act together. National laws are disregarded. Applicants for Planning permission need to know that before  applying for permission - in West Lancashire - Wyre Borough to be specific - you can tip a load of pig manure in a pond and then wait a bit before applying. In addition you can rip your neighbours off by using their survey instead  of paying for your own.

And finally,  Wyre Borough Planning Department does not appear to check any of the advice given by its ecologists. Why would they? Anyone with an ecology degree can set up as an ecologist, and so be recognised as a competent person.

 

Full documentation is available online, and if you wish to PM me, I will gladly supply every reference. I could add the Iinks in this post, but I do not wish to embarrass my neighbours.

 

I do not feel anything like so coy when exposing Wyre Borough to the most severe critique of their practice. How is it that two ecologists can read the same guidelines  and come to  completely different conclusions? The cost for me several thousand quid. For others, zero.

 

Shame on you Wyre Borough, shame on you.

[AliMcLeod]

Did the council have the rights to submit it online? (I suspect they did, under some form of planning process transparency rules).

 

Who owns the IP for the report you paid for? If you, I'd suggest a quiet word with the neighbour suggesting they split the costs... Can you prove they used it? eg, does it now appear on their online planning application?

 

PS. You have every right to be angry/annoyed. It'd take a special kind of person to not be.

Edited November 16, 2018 by AliMcLeod

[ToughButterCup]

@AliMcLeod, the issue of IP and our report  - that ship sailed long ago. Its the several thousand quid and airy disregard for standards that angers me.

Why should one person pay full whack on the say so of some minor eejit in a Planning Department, and others all round  not pay anything at all? I mean we are talking of a distance here where its possible to have a shouted conversation with all concerend. The law applies to one of us and none of the others.

[AliMcLeod]

That's my point. If you own the IP to the report, then the neighbour has used it illegally and should come to some arrangement with you (or your solicitor).

 

I know that's not addressing the mess that is local councils and their completely unfathomable inconsistency.

[joe90]

I feel for you, you may remember our bat fiasco (and the cost to us!). Our planning department didn’t take any notice of the ecologists report and tried to contradict it (even tougher measures). Luckily our appeal (which we won hands down) agreed with us and told the council in no certain terms it was not for them to over ride the ecologists as they were not qualified to do so.

 

When my kids were growing up I told them not to complain that life was not fair, it’s not, deal with it. Although it sticks in your throat (it would mine) perhaps your better concentrating on furthering your project knowing you did it right. Best not to waste energy on the past.

[vivienz]

I would say that your anger is justified, I would certainly feel that way in similar circumstances. How to turn that into something less corrosive to your mental state, I'm not sure.

[ProDave]

Surely the author of the report allowed YOU to use it upon payment of their fee.

 

Now if someone else has used it, that someone else should also pay a fee, and I would expect them to be chasing that someone else for a fee for using their work.

 

Does the author know it has been blatantly stolen? if not I would be telling them.

 

This used to happen with house surveys in Scotland before the Home reports came along.  It is usual in Scotland to have a survey before you make an offer to buy, and if several people were interested, a surveyor would do a survey then charge everyone interested for a copy.

 

You could always invite the offenders round for a cup of tea and cake, and have a chat along the lines of why don't you pay me a share of the fee I paid.........

[Jeremy Harris]

The IP for the report you commissioned rests with the author, not the person that paid for it, unless there was a specific grant of rights to you, other than to use the report in support of your application.

 

if the neighbour really has copied a report from the local authority website and submitted it with their application, then that would almost certainly be a breach of copyright, but not related to you, as the person commissioning the report, but with the report's author.  This means that the author of the report could choose to pursue the person who has used their work without licence, but not you.  Morally I think you have a strong case for telling both the local authority and the author of your report that it has been misused, but whether either choose to do anything about it is doubtful; few people seem to think that copyright misuse is really theft, even though it is, in principle.

 

I had a similar situation in reverse.  My neighbour over the other side of the lane had paid around £4,000 for a flood risk report, covering the stretch of stream and the bottom of the valley where our plot is.  I was asked to produce a flood risk assessment with my application, and initially argued that they had one from my neighbour, submitted just a few weeks before.  The LA said they weren't allowed to use the contents of a separate planning application with regard to ours, and requested that I get another flood risk report.  I asked the company that had undertaken our neighbours flood risk assessment if they could provide me with one.  Yes, they could, for another £4,000.  I declined, on the basis that they had already done all the work and would have been charging me to print off another copy of an existing report with a different client name on it, but respected their right in law to do this.

 

My solution was to request data from the EA and do my own flood risk assessment, quoting only EA derived data.  Not hard, took me a day or two, and it was accepted by the LA without a single question.

[ToughButterCup]

Funny old world.

Wyre Borough Planning turned up this afternoon. Because of my post above?

 

Parked on my frontage. And there was bitter old me hoping an artic would come down our single track Lane and  scrape the side of his car and do about £5000 worth of damage.

No such luck. 

[newhome]

Would have been a company vehicle tho so only taxpayers would pay for it ultimately. I would have had those same bad thoughts however! ?

 

 

[Declan52]

23 minutes ago, recoveringacademic said:

Funny old world.

Wyre Borough Planning turned up this afternoon. Because of my post above?

 

Parked on my frontage. And there was bitter old me hoping an artic would come down our single track Lane and  scrape the side of his car and do about £5000 worth of damage.

No such luck. 

Is not beyond the realms of possibility to have got a puncture from a stray nail. 

[Jeremy Harris]

20 minutes ago, Declan52 said:

Is not beyond the realms of possibility to have got a puncture from a stray nail. 

 

Our landscaping chap always refers to nails he finds around as "puncture seeds".  Must have pulled hundreds off our plot with the aid of my home-made "magnet broom".

[Ferdinand]

22 hours ago, recoveringacademic said:

Why should one person pay full whack on the say so of some minor eejit in a Planning Department, and others all round  not pay anything at all? I mean we are talking of a distance here where its possible to have a shouted conversation with all concerend. The law applies to one of us and none of the others.

 

I think unfortunately this reflects the "planning permission is not precedent" rule, whilst the complexity of the system and the 'responds to complaints does not check everything' makes inconsistency inevitable, and the combination bashed you over the head.

 

I think @vivienz has it.

 

22 hours ago, vivienz said:

I would say that your anger is justified, I would certainly feel that way in similar circumstances. How to turn that into something less corrosive to your mental state, I'm not sure.

 

Ferdinand