Help regarding abandoned development near home

pararct

crazyhaggid wrote: »

This is the reply I got from my local planning department:

"I visited the site and although the site is not tidy, there is no remit within planning enforcement to pursue the developer as it is not considered to be that serious that we could take any notice against them.

The heras fencing is adequate when this type of work is ongoing.

Although the developers as you say have not been on site for some considerable time they are not in breach of any conditions. They have started within the time limit and there is no completion date."

From what I've read here is this wrong?

I would be thinking you have been fobbed with a stock email reply... Your first post on this subject was 10.12 pm yesterday, how have the council really been round and inspected the site and got back to you on a Sunday of a Bank Holiday weekend so quickly?

Your next port of call would be your local councillor, tell him the Planning department are fobbing you off and you think you saw kids on the site from your top window..... :cool:

crazyhaggid

pararct wrote: »

I would be thinking you have been fobbed with a stock email reply... Your first post on this subject was 10.12 pm yesterday, how have the council really been round and inspected the site and got back to you on a Sunday of a Bank Holiday weekend so quickly?

Your next port of call would be your local councillor, tell him the Planning department are fobbing you off and you think you saw kids on the site from your top window..... :cool:

Thanks for the reply, I think there's a bit of confusion here I said in my first post I had contacted the planning department and they had said no to my request, I just found and posted the actual reply.

Contacting my councillor sounds like a good idea.

milliebear00001

I am fully expecting that sort of reply too - if they even bother. My next step would be my local councillor - suggest you take that route also. You could also try your local paper.

pararct

crazyhaggid wrote: »

Thanks for the reply, I think there's a bit of confusion here I said in my first post I had contacted the planning department and they had said no to my request, I just found and posted the actual reply.

Contacting my councillor sounds like a good idea.

My apologies.

Is the hoarding around the site in good repair? Building firms have an implicit duty of care to ensure their sites are secure and safe, perversely even from trespassers. If they think kids are getting access then there will be more of an effort to try and do something.

I would also look up the definition of 'starting work' in the legal sense of expiry of planning applications. As I understand it this has to be a real effort towards the development and not simply clearing/demolishing the site.

The problem stems from the lack of a property tax on empty properties. If any government had the balls to introduce such a thing then all the empty houses across the UK would be returned to the use they were intended for PDQ.

My experience of Local Authority planning departments is that some of them are woefully inefficient. I used to live in a London Boro. Some of my neighbours in that Boro were building granny flats and all sorts in their back gardens without Planning Permissions and the LA simply wasn't interested. One over the back from where I used to live put a a two storey structure with a front door with letterbox, the full works. I even sent them photographs of the bathroom suite being delivered though the upstairs window (before they had put the window in) and still they did not investigate!!

Good luck you are going to need it..........