Challenging Local Council - bad planning permission decision

ktb

There is a huge back story that I can't possibly fully explain here... but in a nutshell after a long saga, the Enforcement Officer at the local council has just admitted on the phone that the feeling amongst council committee that oversaw the objection (& refusal) to a retrospective planning request to an already approved planning application, is that they made the wrong decision approving the building of the house the first place.

The consequence of their initial planning approval is a large 3 storey house built just 3 metres from our rear boundary which stretches the full length of the boundary and is only 15 metres from our house. It is completely overbearing, reduces our light & has windows that look straight into our bedrooms.

The new property has devalued our property considerably & caused months and months of high stress & upset. The committee came to see the end result from our garden just before Christmas and this comment from the Enforcement Officer is in light of their visit.

We have explored legal options with a solicitor but without considerable funds aren't able to do very much.

I wondered if anyone knew of any precedents with regards to challenging the council on a poor planning decision? We have spoken to the Ombudsmen but they are totally toothless and only provide an advisory role for the council in future cases... that doesn't help us now though.

Thanks

System

What was the nature of the second planning application?
Doesn't matter what an enforcement officer has said about a previously approved application, that's just their off the record opinion, the original planning application has presumably been assessed against the policy at the time and found to comply?
Perceived loss of value is unfortunate but not a material planning consideration.
Once something is built it's very very rare, expensive and difficult to get an enforcement order to remove it and it's down to you to prove that the development does not meet local or national planning legislation and that the previous decision and committee decision was against policy. It will be a very expensive and utimately fruitless excercise tbh

ktb

the_r_sole wrote: »

What was the nature of the second planning application?

Thanks for your insights....

The developer built a different house to that approved initially, it is a metre taller, with overlooking windows & a large chimney stack which protrudes into a designated exclusion zone to our boundary - none of these changes have yet been approved but we understand the developer will be appealing the decision.

If they win this appeal I can't see how this approval would comply with policy at the time of the initial planning permission approval as total building height & overlooking windows etc were strictly restricted in that and the developer has ignored that. I.e the house that has actually been built would never have been given permission in the initial round - they are trying to get approval by the back door.

We would never expect them to take the building down - but I can't believe there is no process to have the initial decision reviewed? It seems all the rights to appeal are with the developer?

System

If they haven't built to the original approval then there's absolutely zero point in asking for that to be looked at? What are you hoping to achieve here?
If they have introduced new over looking then that would be a material consideration, but I don't think making the building 1m taller would have a significant impact on that, it would only be if they've installed windows onto an elevation without any windows on the approved drawings... It's likely the council can ask for obscure glazing on those windows but it depends what rooms the windows are into too.
Was there a set building height on the original planning approval? And they have increased it by 1m? It's such a random amount, it's not like they can add another story into a 1m height so I would imagine that that is for a reason (it would be more expensive for the developer so they wouldn't have done it if not necessary)

Did you object to the initial planning application? If so you are usually notified if the decision and I think that letter usually details how you can appeal the decision, however there is a strict timeframe to lodge a challenge which I would imagine you are well beyond now. If there have been material changes to the approved scheme they will have to be done via the normal planning application/appeal process.
But if you don't want them to undo the work, what exactly do you want? Do you want the council to pay you for the perceived loss of value on your home if the original application is judged by the reporter to be incorrectly approved?
Cases like this is why planning departments bang on about their being no precedent in planning, if something was previously approved and turns out to be incongruous then they can learn from their mistakes and tweak their local planning policies, but it doesn't mean they will ever admit a mistake or allow appeals outside of the statutory time frames.