Developer has built 2bed mews houses not one bed studios as planned - Help?

planning_officer

Agree with seven-day-weekend - it's very unlikely that planners are just telling developers to go ahead regardless. Although it sounds like the enforcement dept is very overstretched if there's only one enforcement officer for the whole district - I know some London Boroughs where there are around 18 to 20 enforcement officers!

Like SDW says above, enforcement action will only be taken where it is expedient to do so - i.e. if there are real planning objections to the development as built. If there are no real planning objections, then it's clearly not a productive use of time or use of tax payers money. Although if the council are so overstretched you may have a point when you say developers are attracted to the area because they know about the slack enforcement - without wishing to 'big up' my council (!) we are pretty hot on enforcement and the developers know that and do not generally try to get away with anything, although some always do try it on. It's much better, and more effective to have that reputation, rather than giving the impression that not many developments are rigorously enforced. Having said that, it may be that your council have investigated and decided it's not expedient to take any action, so i wouldn't want to cast any judgement without knowing all the facts.

seven-day-weekend

My Council's Enforcement Section for years only had one Enforcement Officer - and this is for a large Midlands City with a population of around 250,000!

He was so overworked he had a breakdown and when he came back afreter this, the Enforcement Section was vastly enlarged. Another Enforcement Officer was appointed, and an Enforcement Manager, and an Enforcement Technician (me).

(I hear a rumour though that since I left in 2004, the new Enforcement Technician will not go out on site as I did and therefore his colleagues are getting overworked again....).

Enforcement is very important but is sadly understaffed in many authorities.

usignuolo

Yes well our borough has 180,000 residents and we have one full time Enforcement Officer and one part time. I am not saying ourplanners do deals with the developers, not that I know of but in a case I was involved with (not the current one), the developer revealed that he had been discussed it with the planners who had advised him what would be acceptable and the residents were not aware of this and very angry when they heard the advice. A legal challenge was made, and the judge ruled that it is quite acceptable for planners and developers to have discussions on what is acceptable.

It does mean, as I have said before, that one starts to wonder what is the point of planning permission if the developer can then develop the site with a lot more flats, or bigger houses, than applied for and it is just waived through on the advice of the planners. Why bother with planning permission in the first place.

seven-day-weekend

Well I actually would have thought it was quite responsible of developers to talk about what might be acceptable before submitting their plans! It is part of the planner's role to advise on this.

It still has to go through normal planning channels and can still be refused (and often is).

Also, things don't just get 'waived through'. It will be granted if if not classed as bad enough in planning terms to refuse, as enforcement action can be a long and drawn out procedure, and an expensive use of public money. If it IS bad enough it will be refused.

I agree of course that responsible developers should build in accordance with the approved plans.

planning_officer

usignuolo wrote: »

Yes well our borough has 180,000 residents and we have one full time Enforcement Officer and one part time. I am not saying ourplanners do deals with the developers, not that I know of but in a case I was involved with (not the current one), the developer revealed that he had been discussed it with the planners who had advised him what would be acceptable and the residents were not aware of this and very angry when they heard the advice. A legal challenge was made, and the judge ruled that it is quite acceptable for planners and developers to have discussions on what is acceptable.

Yes, of course it's acceptable for informal discussions to take place!! If you wanted to extend your house, you'd expect to be able to send in some plans to the planning dept and get a response on how likely it was that permission would be granted! The same applies for bigger schemes and for developers - they often send plans in for informal comments prior to submitting an application and discuss these with planning officers. The purpose is to 'iron out' any obvious problems - however in my experience, developers often either ignore the advice and then submit a planning application or make just minimal changes to the development to address any concerns and then submit an application - often the changes are not sufficient to overcome any concerns and the application gets refused.

The 'pre-application' process of discussing development schemes is encouraged by all central Government guidance - however all advice is given with a strict disclaimer that no matter what the planning officers say, it does not mean that permission will be granted. There are aspects of applications that can only assessed through a formal application and of course local residents, parish council etc have the opportunity to comment on a formal application - so if other issues crop up, or there is overwhelming public opposition, for example, it does not mean that just because a planning officer said 'that may be ok' beforehand, the development would be granted permission. Quiet often, they are not!

planning_officer

usignuolo wrote: »

It does mean, as I have said before, that one starts to wonder what is the point of planning permission if the developer can then develop the site with a lot more flats, or bigger houses, than applied for and it is just waived through on the advice of the planners. Why bother with planning permission in the first place.

As I said before, and as SDW clarifies above, enforcement action will only be taken when it is expedient to do so - if the development is perfectly acceptable in planning terms (and your neighbours property may well be - just because you don't like it does not mean it is sufficiently bad to warrant a refusal). Why should tax payers money be wasted on pursuing enforcement action if the development is acceptable - as all the developer has to do is appeal it and win?!