Change to planning clause

grass_is_greener

We were granted planning for our loft extension and small office extension last year. We now have our builder sorted but looking at the materials.
Unfortunately, within the planning consent, there was a clause stating that "‘The materials to be used in the construction of the external surfaces of the development hereby permitted shall match in colour and texture those used in the existing building.
Reason In the interest of the visual amenity"

We have now approached the planning department to say that we were wanting to change our windows from wood to white UPVC and that we would like to have red tiles rather than the current grey! Now, given that the whole road is different and there are no two houses the same, we were surprised that this clause was even in there!
The councils response is that we have to pay £195 for them to consider whether this clause can be removed.
So, my question is ... Why and how can they enforce this clause? We have had quotes for changing the downstairs windows which are not involved in the build (to match what we hoped would be upstairs), would the planning department make us have different upstairs to downstairs because it has to be the same as it used to be? If we did downstairs first, would that then supersede the upstairs? If we go through with the £195, there is no guarantee that the council will agree with it!! If we wanted a new roof today, we wouldn't have to apply for planning (not a listed building or conservation area) so why do they have this control when we could change it the day after without them having a say.
I'm not sure if this makes sense but I hope it gives the gist of the situation.
Is there a way out??! Any way of jumping through their daft loopholes without paying the planning department yet again!!!

MX5huggy

It's a standard condition, if you wanted something different you should have specified material finishes on your plans. Without it you could clad it in cabbages or tin foil and the planners could do nothing about it.

If they issued a enforcement notice you would have to comply or face an up £20000 fine.

grass_is_greener

MX5huggy wrote: »

It's a standard condition, if you wanted something different you should have specified material finishes on your plans. Without it you could clad it in cabbages or tin foil and the planners could do nothing about it.

If they issued a enforcement notice you would have to comply or face an up £20000 fine.

Ok, thanks. Materials and colours we wanted were specified on the plans but it seems over ruled by this clause so sounds like no where to go but back to planning. Or live with a house with half white UPVC windows and half brown wood!!:eek:

Buzby

Cheap UPVc will yellow and discover. True there's no maintenance, but wood if cared for will look better for longer.

Johnandabby

Why couldn't you change the existing roof tiles and windows first? And then the 'existing' state noted in the condition is what you wanted. The purpose of the condition is to make it all look the same, and to ensure that the extensions tie in with the existing building. It doesn't say match existing at the time of submission.

grass_is_greener

Johnandabby wrote: »

Why couldn't you change the existing roof tiles and windows first? And then the 'existing' state noted in the condition is what you wanted. The purpose of the condition is to make it all look the same, and to ensure that the extensions tie in with the existing building. It doesn't say match existing at the time of submission.

Whilst in theory, that's a good idea. It would probably cost more in the long run to take all the roof tiles off our current roof and retile, and then take them off again for the build and reuse (all would have to be removed because the whole roof is going).
I can totally understand why the clause is there but it seems a bit daft when we don't need planning permission to change windows or roof tiles and would like the choice.

Sadly, it seems the cheapest option is to pay the council fees.

grass_is_greener

Buzby wrote: »

Cheap UPVc will yellow and discover. True there's no maintenance, but wood if cared for will look better for longer.

Thank you but we currently have wooden windows and because we live on the coast, there is a lot of maintenance involved and we have to treat them every 6 months. Hence why we would like to change to what the majority of our neighbours have (without any maintenance or discolouration issues).

grass_is_greener

On speaking to the council, they have now advised us to make an application for a non material amendment which is around £25 however, if this is declined we will have to go for the full removal of the clause which is £195 and minimum 12 weeks wait which will put our build to next year! ����

2013yearofthehouse

A house near us built an extension with the elevations of the PP app showing half red brick half dark brown timber cladding to match the existing house. The approval had the materials clause in as standard. However, the extension, now built, has a plain cream render where the cladding should be (it's 3 very small areas around the windows, no more than 5 sq m in total) as apparently the builder thought it looked better (the plan was still to clad it right throughout the build) and I guess they managed to convince the council because it's been finished over 6 months now. Unless they are in some sort of long drawn out dispute about it, I don't know!

Edit: actually now that I think about it, the whole thing was finished bar the cladding for a few weeks before the render suddenly appeared, so maybe they asked for the change really late in the build process and were allowed it. Could have been a few weeks post finishing everything else or could have been 12 weeks, but maybe they were allowed to continue working while the decision was made.