The new news 24 thread

[chodweaver]

You need to completely fill your garden with horse manure. Pile it really high. Nobody will want to but a house next door to a garden full of horse shit.

Yeah, like Paul sez, if it were me, I'd be doing my damnedest to fuck them up. You might have missed the boat with tree preservation orders, but you might try looking for some endangered species of moth or newt on it. Or find and 'rehome' some badgers onto the land and then make sure their presence is well publicised...

My parents bought their dream plot in 1951. Land adjacent to and being sold by the local church. A 1/2 acre thicket of bramble and apple orchard. Next to it, a paddock, also church land. My folks enquired if the paddock would be available to purchase in the future and the local vicar told them it would be, so they built their house close to the boundary with the paddock, in expectation of buying it too and ending up with their house in the middle of a large garden - they were both keen gardeners.

In 1952, they asked the vicar if the land was available. He told them 'not yet'.

Then developers turned up, and built 13 houses ('bungalows' the plans said) on the paddock.
Four of the houses were within five yards of the wall that separated the two plots of land, every one with four first floor windows overlooking my parents' house and so close that any privacy on that side of my parents house was gone.

Relations between my parents and the local church soured somewhat after that.

When my parents built an extension, they were prevented from putting any windows on that side of the first floor because it would compromise the privacy of the new builds.

So I understand the anger you feel towards the school and the developer. Fuck em up, any way you can.

Sent from my BV6000 using Tapatalk

[mitsisigma01]

Japanese knotweed and asbestos will cost them time and money!! 

[danthecapriman]

9 minutes ago, volvov70 said:

Just report the sighting of a Great Crested Newt to the EA. No end of pain for the developers

What does your local planning portal say about the development? Has it been approved?

There are newts here, wether or not there’s any great crested ones I don’t know. Down the bottom of all our gardens in the land still owned and used by the school there’s a big pond, the land all slopes down towards it with all our houses along the top of the slope along the road. Obviously the bottom half of the land is quite wet and we’ve got loads of frogs and newts around if you look for them. There’s a massive willow tree there too which is usually a big give away for wet ground. This is a concern too, if they build where he’s planning too and then puts an access drive in as well, that could very well mean the run off water ends up in the garden either side. 

Theres problems with waste/sewage water drainage too, the street and underground drains are very old now, they’ve never been replaced or upgraded and now the amount of houses using them has doubled. A few years ago a bent local councillor bought two big old bungalows opposite our house and tried to build 80 retirement flats on the site, it made the local news because of said dodgy deals with the councillor, but planning was rejected a few times before they finally relented and approved 30 retirement flats. Since then in wet winters we get major overflow problems with the drains! Our next door neighbour has the lowest garden and he had a river of sewage in his back garden a few years ago! 

 

This lot trying to develop now didn't even attempt to look for things like newts. They just went straight in and levelled the site, so anything that was there is probably dead now! There’s no plans submitted yet as far as I know, what I know is only from being a nosey bastard and listening to the owner when he was there discussing things a few days ago. I think he was with an architect or something. I think it’ll take him a while to get anything through at the moment with all the virus shutdown etc, but it will come.

[Semi-C]

This prime slice of smut has not been forgotten about since I relieved mr Sri05 of it last May!!

My dad is it’s custodian and hasn’t stopped jetting his malennaise on, at and around it since he took delivery.

There’s been little to report until now, flawless service has been it’s fortê and it has rekindled my dad’s enjoyment in driving (he’s an HGV tramper so not an unimpressive feat), as well as piquing his new found interest in polishing.

An unknown battery drain sapped all the electricity from the car without warning and rendered it incapable of starting or shifting gear. No amount of fully charged batterys could encourage a start so, a journey of googling, component swapping and discovery was embarked upon.

The brake light switch had failed so a replacement was fitted, to no avail sadly. Swapping the body control module did nowt as did replacing the ecu/swapping relays/etc.

With my meagre understanding of cars exhausted, I was directed towards Jaguar smartypants’ Roach Classics in Acton, Suffolk by a pal who was formerly an employee there. 
I had the XJ6 collected yesterday noontime and by 1630 o’clock it was running and driving fine! All of it’s original electrical modules were refitted and reprogrammed so we’re back in the game.

I’ll be fetching the car back home next week as my dad has elected to get the abs pump pre-emptively overhauled whilst the specialists still have it.

 I cannot wait to drive it again, my journey back from Glasgow to Suffolk was blissful and if I didn’t have an LS400, I would be x300 mounted right now.

[Broadsword]

48 minutes ago, Semi-C said:

This prime slice of smut has not been forgotten about since I relieved mr Sri05 of it last May!!

My dad is it’s custodian and hasn’t stopped jetting his malennaise on, at and around it since he took delivery.

There’s been little to report until now, flawless service has been it’s fortê and it has rekindled my dad’s enjoyment in driving (he’s an HGV tramper so not an unimpressive feat), as well as piquing his new found interest in polishing.

An unknown battery drain sapped all the electricity from the car without warning and rendered it incapable of starting or shifting gear. No amount of fully charged batterys could encourage a start so, a journey of googling, component swapping and discovery was embarked upon.

The brake light switch had failed so a replacement was fitted, to no avail sadly. Swapping the body control module did nowt as did replacing the ecu/swapping relays/etc.

With my meagre understanding of cars exhausted, I was directed towards Jaguar smartypants’ Roach Classics in Acton, Suffolk by a pal who was formerly an employee there. 
I had the XJ6 collected yesterday noontime and by 1630 o’clock it was running and driving fine! All of it’s original electrical modules were refitted and reprogrammed so we’re back in the game.

I’ll be fetching the car back home next week as my dad has elected to get the abs pump pre-emptively overhauled whilst the specialists still have it.

 I cannot wait to drive it again, my journey back from Glasgow to Suffolk was blissful and if I didn’t have an LS400, I would be x300 mounted right now.

Thanks for posting on what was formerly one of my many Jags. It’s looking like it’s had some real love, which make me smile. I think it’s the visually the best looking X300 I ever had mainly due to the colour being bang on (I was told it had been resprayed not long ago). The battery drain seems a bit strange. A failed BCM kills the car dead. I think you did the right thing just handing it over to a specialist to get out of hole. Just for future reference if you get that non-start issue again with a full battery out of the blue look carefully at the P on the J-gate. It will not start if it doesn’t illuminate red. This is controlled by a little micro switch which gets tired over time. Usually just wiggle the stick in park and it will be fine. TADTS! There is an interlock on the gearbox that can also fail sometimes (I have a spare). Happy to lend advice if you need it on any other X300 issues!

[danthecapriman]

56 minutes ago, volvov70 said:

When did they level the site? Pre or post March? If it was post March then they will already be in trouble - nesting season and all that.

Doesn't matter if GC newts are there or not, just reporting a sighting of one on a construction site gets the EA in a right tizzy

Your local councils planning portal (may be district council) must have some info - even if it is just a basic site plan

They cleared it a couple of weeks ago. There were loads of bird nests, all gone now! There’s one tree left that has a nest in, but obviously that’ll be gone once the birds fly. Why they cleared the others and left just one I don’t know. Probably just a token gesture to appear to be doing the right thing I expect. I know there’s newts around here though as we’ve got a small pond ourselves, we cleaned it out after winter and found quite a few of them in and around it.

I can’t find anything yet for plans, but they might not have submitted any yet.

[Joey spud]

This development stuff really boils my blood.

Up here in Kent with have Medway city council who are mostly a bunch of corrupt fuckers.

They shut down the local golf course as they claimed it was loosing them money (the only council run course in the country ever to manage this so more like mis management tbh) and within two weeks totally ruined the greens and cut down any tree's and hedges on the site.

They then revealed plans to build a few thousand homes on it but we have kicked the local Tory councillors out and replaced them with our own independent ones to slow the fuckers down.

This has pissed the Tory lead council off somewhat so in retaliation they turned the Golf courses club house and restaurant into offices for the council owned waste and maintenance arm (Medway Norse) and allowed the car park to be littered with shipping containers and used for parking of a fleet of refuse collection trucks,access to the site is down a narrow lane.

You or i couldn't  just turn a golf course in to a refuse site but medway council can and when this was pointed out to them they basically said tough.

So we complained and made them submit retrospective planning permission but as they are the council it obviously got granted as they were already there and said there was nowhere else suitable.

I could go on and on about the amount of money they waste and how their leader blocks any attempt to build in his ward where there is suitable developer owned land sitting empty instead he wants stick 12000 new houses on Hoo penisula which is a mix of farm land and flood plains with one road in and out.

 

[Split_Pin]

Aye let's destroy a public place/green space/local place of manufacture and employment and replace it with 1300 sterile 'luxury homes', instantly creating a cultural desert for Mr & Mrs Whothefuck with an A class and Audi A1 on the drive together with their 2 hyper active children permanently dressed in football strips.

Can you tell how I feel about that?

[SRi05]

3 hours ago, Semi-C said:

This prime slice of smut has not been forgotten about since I relieved mr Sri05 of it last May!!

My dad is it’s custodian and hasn’t stopped jetting his malennaise on, at and around it since he took delivery.

There’s been little to report until now, flawless service has been it’s fortê and it has rekindled my dad’s enjoyment in driving (he’s an HGV tramper so not an unimpressive feat), as well as piquing his new found interest in polishing.

An unknown battery drain sapped all the electricity from the car without warning and rendered it incapable of starting or shifting gear. No amount of fully charged batterys could encourage a start so, a journey of googling, component swapping and discovery was embarked upon.

The brake light switch had failed so a replacement was fitted, to no avail sadly. Swapping the body control module did nowt as did replacing the ecu/swapping relays/etc.

With my meagre understanding of cars exhausted, I was directed towards Jaguar smartypants’ Roach Classics in Acton, Suffolk by a pal who was formerly an employee there. 
I had the XJ6 collected yesterday noontime and by 1630 o’clock it was running and driving fine! All of it’s original electrical modules were refitted and reprogrammed so we’re back in the game.

I’ll be fetching the car back home next week as my dad has elected to get the abs pump pre-emptively overhauled whilst the specialists still have it.

 I cannot wait to drive it again, my journey back from Glasgow to Suffolk was blissful and if I didn’t have an LS400, I would be x300 mounted right now.

Glad to hear this is still going strong. I loved this car and still miss it !

[HillmanImp]

The 'fuck up someone's development just because' is a bit of a shit attitude everyone, especially as you know nothing about it or the developer. All a bit Facebook outragey innit. Yeah, it's not ideal having someone build a house next door, or destroying a nice bit of land to do it but imagine ploughing all your money into something for your retirement or something for some cunt to start making stupid unfounded claims about newts. Y'all sound like a bunch of Karens. *

Anyway, a few years ago a couple down my street bought the house next door to them when the old dear in it died. They bought it for peanuts and let it out for a couple of years which fine. Good on them, especially as the arsehole who'd had his eye on it for years, mowing her lawn etc just to get his mits on it got told to do one. He actually wen't over on the day she died asking if he could buy it and well got the families backs up, the mustachioed tool. What I wasn't happy with was that they then applied to build another house in the quite substantial garden of the rental property. 

Normally I wouldn't mind if it was a good place to build a house but we lived down a narrow cul-de-sac of 1920's semi's and they were proposing building a 3 storey detached house that was totally out of place and there really wasn't room for it IMO.

What I did was I went onto the council website and found other local planning applications and looked at why they were rejected. From memory the main points were: 

• One of the major items was traffic. There had been several rejections due to parking and access in loads of applications so I raised that.
• The location of the property would make it incredibly difficult for builders to access as with limited parking and cars everywhere lorries etc are unable to get up and down the road.
• Another one that was common was privacy as the new property would have looked into the property that they were building on. 
• The houses down my street were all a single build i.e. they all looked the same barring cosmetic differences. The new house didn't fit in, it stood out and ruined the aesthetics of the street and there had been several rejections because of that locally.

Lots of my neighbours etc put in the most pathetic objections like 'It'll spoil my view' or 'I don't like the couple that live there'. Who gives a fuck.

I did have a bit of a dig on my objection as they'd said on the application that they lived in a semi detached house and they wanted a larger detached house for their growing family but I pointed out that they should just knock through their house into the one next door as they own both if they wanted to do that and that this was obviously a land grab, as if they wanted to bullshit the council to try and blag their way through I was happy to knock them down a peg just because I felt like being a cunt. That was a personal issue though as I didn't like the guys wife. Normally  I wouldn't have done that.

It wasn't approved for all the reason I listed. And the fact that in order to get access they plan they'd submitted required their next door neighbours garage to be pulled down and rebuilt and they hadn't even asked her.....fuckwits.

One point is that the architects will submit OTT plans at first with a few items that they will then 'scale back' to keep the planners happy after objections have been received to hopefully get approval second time round. You know like putting your car up for sale for £3,300 because you want £3,000. So some things will be obvious objections that will be easily rectified, it's genuine issues that can't be rectified that you need to look at.

It might be that this is a great place to build a house and whilst it's upsetting for people locally, you'll just have to suck it up but it there is a legitimate reason not to build it object for those reasons not because the noise of the building work will upset your spaniel or something like some of the people down my street did.

*Not applicable to Dan obviously who's well within his rights to have a good moan, I mean all the people telling him to ruin someone when they know barely nothing about it.

[Zelandeth]

Oh FFS.  It's going to be one of those afternoons is it...

[gm]

I hoovered the civic yesterday and found this seat adjuster stuffed in the seat pocket - it doesn't belong to the civic but does seem familiar - Saab, maybe ? Is anyone missing one ? 

 

[danthecapriman]

1 hour ago, HillmanImp said:

The 'fuck up someone's development just because' is a bit of a shit attitude everyone, especially as you know nothing about it or the developer. All a bit Facebook outragey innit. Yeah, it's not ideal having someone build a house next door, or destroying a nice bit of land to do it but imagine ploughing all your money into something for your retirement or something for some cunt to start making stupid unfounded claims about newts. Y'all sound like a bunch of Karens. *

Anyway, a few years ago a couple down my street bought the house next door to them when the old dear in it died. They bought it for peanuts and let it out for a couple of years which fine. Good on them, especially as the arsehole who'd had his eye on it for years, mowing her lawn etc just to get his mits on it got told to do one. He actually wen't over on the day she died asking if he could buy it and well got the families backs up, the mustachioed tool. What I wasn't happy with was that they then applied to build another house in the quite substantial garden of the rental property. 

Normally I wouldn't mind if it was a good place to build a house but we lived down a narrow cul-de-sac of 1920's semi's and they were proposing building a 3 storey detached house that was totally out of place and there really wasn't room for it IMO.

What I did was I went onto the council website and found other local planning applications and looked at why they were rejected. From memory the main points were: 

• One of the major items was traffic. There had been several rejections due to parking and access in loads of applications so I raised that.
• The location of the property would make it incredibly difficult for builders to access as with limited parking and cars everywhere lorries etc are unable to get up and down the road.
• Another one that was common was privacy as the new property would have looked into the property that they were building on. 
• The houses down my street were all a single build i.e. they all looked the same barring cosmetic differences. The new house didn't fit in, it stood out and ruined the aesthetics of the street and there had been several rejections because of that locally.

Lots of my neighbours etc put in the most pathetic objections like 'It'll spoil my view' or 'I don't like the couple that live there'. Who gives a fuck.

I did have a bit of a dig on my objection as they'd said on the application that they lived in a semi detached house and they wanted a larger detached house for their growing family but I pointed out that they should just knock through their house into the one next door as they own both if they wanted to do that and that this was obviously a land grab, as if they wanted to bullshit the council to try and blag their way through I was happy to knock them down a peg just because I felt like being a cunt. That was a personal issue though as I didn't like the guys wife. Normally  I wouldn't have done that.

It wasn't approved for all the reason I listed. And the fact that in order to get access they plan they'd submitted required their next door neighbours garage to be pulled down and rebuilt and they hadn't even asked her.....fuckwits.

One point is that the architects will submit OTT plans at first with a few items that they will then 'scale back' to keep the planners happy after objections have been received to hopefully get approval second time round. You know like putting your car up for sale for £3,300 because you want £3,000. So some things will be obvious objections that will be easily rectified, it's genuine issues that can't be rectified that you need to look at.

It might be that this is a great place to build a house and whilst it's upsetting for people locally, you'll just have to suck it up but it there is a legitimate reason not to build it object for those reasons not because the noise of the building work will upset your spaniel or something like some of the people down my street did.

*Not applicable to Dan obviously who's well within his rights to have a good moan, I mean all the people telling him to ruin someone when they know barely nothing about it.

That’s actually a useful post, thanks.

Yeah, I think the ruination of the guy and his land stuff was meant a bit tongue in cheek. I certainly wouldn’t do it as it’s just not how I do things, all joking aside.

Tbh, this has been a potential issue for a few years. Plots of land like that are like hot cakes at the moment so I can see why (even if I don’t agree with it and the history behind this particular site is a bit off to develop it). But, fair is fair, it’s his land now and that’s that. I bitterly hate the loss of the trees though, and I strongly believe that at least some of them could and should have been retained. Also, doing that would have kept him in the neighbours ‘good books’ and made the finished site much more in keeping with the area and greatly helping with the privacy issues. Plus, for anyone buying one of these new houses it’d have likely made them more appealing by having a few established trees already there.

One good thing though that’s come from this is that he’s been in touch with us and the neighbour the other side and wants to completely replace both of our fences at his cost. I know that’s for his benefit as well but he didn’t have to offer that. He could have just as easily turned around and told us our fence is fucked and leaning over his way and he wants us to sort it! 

 

As far as the building is concerned (and forgetting about the trees for a mo) I wouldn’t be nearly as bothered if he went for a single house like the rest of the street already is. That would be absolutely fine by me if that’s the way it is. The problem will come if/when they try building a 3 bed detached house at the rear of the property. This will be completely out of character for the area as no other property on this street has this - all are long gardens with nothing at the far ends. Of course this will cause serious privacy issues as that one house will have its front facing everyone else’s rear windows, living room, bathroom, bedrooms etc etc and also it will overlook several private back gardens. But, I suppose that’s our argument when the time comes ref the planning and approval stage.

 

Im desperately trying to get a head start on this though, hence the new trees! I’d like to get them in the ground so they can start growing and giving me the privacy and wildlife back that’s been lost.

Do they actually take notice of objections then? I was of the opinion that it was just a case of letting the residents have their say then ignoring it and letting the developers carry on regardless! But then, I’m a negative fucker!

 

[Dannyk]

Washed this thing yesterday, thought it looked alright then today the year old back box has fallen off, so it now sounds like a rally car* its like being 18 again with a nova with a cherrybomb, 

all Volkswagens are shit.

[lesapandre]

Buses. Are you a fan? I just came across this on the web. Lots of films and the buses featured with lots of detail. Quite fun:

http://www.busesonscreen.net/

[Pete-M]

Car washed. I sense a day of claying and polishing coming along tomorrow. 

Top tip: when running your fingers over bodywork when claying, put your hand in a plastic freezer bag and the detritus on the paint will be much more noticeable. Makes claying much easier. 

[wuvvum]

2 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

Do they actually take notice of objections then? I was of the opinion that it was just a case of letting the residents have their say then ignoring it and letting the developers carry on regardless! But then, I’m a negative fucker!

That depends on the size of the brown envelope the developer slips to the Council's planning dept under the table.

[Mally]

34 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

That depends on the size of the brown envelope the developer slips to the Council's planning dept under the table.

I'm not sure about that, but I'll ask.

@rantingYoof

[beko1987]

My mums new pressure washer arrived today

She said I could use it first then conveniently* when I'm done myself and my stepdad will find ourselves in the same tesco car park and it'll go into their car. 

Soon I'll have a shiny car too! Never used one of the patio attachments either so it would be rude not to give that a whirl... 

[anonymous user]

1 hour ago, wuvvum said:

That depends on the size of the brown envelope the developer slips to the Council's planning dept under the table.

Because of course all Planning Departments are corrupt, #thanks for that.

[High Jetter]

19 hours ago, HMC said:

Good to read about all the fettling going on; all I did was to take a flattering photo of the Mercedes (The paint is quite rough in parts and it’s been attacked with a golf club at some point) and make an ultra low budget what do we have lying around darth Vader outfit.

Wow - I thought you'd be a bit taller than that!

[HillmanImp]

4 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

That’s actually a useful post, thanks.

Yeah, I think the ruination of the guy and his land stuff was meant a bit tongue in cheek. I certainly wouldn’t do it as it’s just not how I do things, all joking aside.

Tbh, this has been a potential issue for a few years. Plots of land like that are like hot cakes at the moment so I can see why (even if I don’t agree with it and the history behind this particular site is a bit off to develop it). But, fair is fair, it’s his land now and that’s that. I bitterly hate the loss of the trees though, and I strongly believe that at least some of them could and should have been retained. Also, doing that would have kept him in the neighbours ‘good books’ and made the finished site much more in keeping with the area and greatly helping with the privacy issues. Plus, for anyone buying one of these new houses it’d have likely made them more appealing by having a few established trees already there.

One good thing though that’s come from this is that he’s been in touch with us and the neighbour the other side and wants to completely replace both of our fences at his cost. I know that’s for his benefit as well but he didn’t have to offer that. He could have just as easily turned around and told us our fence is fucked and leaning over his way and he wants us to sort it! 

 

As far as the building is concerned (and forgetting about the trees for a mo) I wouldn’t be nearly as bothered if he went for a single house like the rest of the street already is. That would be absolutely fine by me if that’s the way it is. The problem will come if/when they try building a 3 bed detached house at the rear of the property. This will be completely out of character for the area as no other property on this street has this - all are long gardens with nothing at the far ends. Of course this will cause serious privacy issues as that one house will have its front facing everyone else’s rear windows, living room, bathroom, bedrooms etc etc and also it will overlook several private back gardens. But, I suppose that’s our argument when the time comes ref the planning and approval stage.

 

Im desperately trying to get a head start on this though, hence the new trees! I’d like to get them in the ground so they can start growing and giving me the privacy and wildlife back that’s been lost.

Do they actually take notice of objections then? I was of the opinion that it was just a case of letting the residents have their say then ignoring it and letting the developers carry on regardless! But then, I’m a negative fucker!

 

Don't worry, I realised you were being tongue in cheek but I got the feeling others were being morally outraged on your behalf, apologies to those if I was being whooshed.

The houses that were being built on my old lockup were originally rejected because there wasn't enough room for the bin lorry to turn round. They'd originally tried squeezing 3 houses in the impossibly small area but ended up having to go for 2 to allow for this so all sorts of things can impact a build. 

I only know what I did last time and unless someone suggests something better, if you are going to object to it, I'd recommend doing the same. Look for other applications that have been refused locally, see why they were and see if you can apply any of the same reasons on the build next door. 

Even looking at ones that have passed can give you a good idea if they were rejected in earlier applications as the reason they were initially turned down might be more serious on your build, even if it passed at a later stage on that one. 

As far as them listening to you, I've got no idea if it works. I'm not sure what, if any influence I had on the one that was turned down near me, all those points may have come up anyway as part of the planning evaluation. It might be that if you raise a certain legitimate point they need to otherwise investigate it other it will generally pass. Other people will know more. I can just give you my experience on it. 

[rantingYoof]

1 hour ago, anonymous user said:

Because of course all Planning Departments are corrupt, #thanks for that.

If there's nowt on the planning website yet it doesn't sound like there's even an application logged.

(I'm only here 'cuz I woz tagged, like).

Schools and County Councils are absolutely destitute around the country because of ten years of austerity (my local Council literally went bankrupt), so they'll be looking for any way to release a nice lump sum. I would assume they've used in-house solicitors to scrutinise the contact or whatever they had gifting them the land and found it within their rights to sell (legally if not morally). Selling off potential building plots is a nice easy way to make a few bucks, and they can include a clawback clause to try and benefit from the land value uplift. 

You may hate it, but for a broke Council it makes financial sense, especially if it means they can presumably keep providing essential services to people in its district.

Once the County Council has sold it to Joe Public, any actions undertaken by Joe Public shouldn't be hung around the Council's neck. If Joe Public wants to steam in and level the site of unprotected trees before submitting an application so the Council doesn't think of TPOing the lot then they are free to do that. It's likely Joe Public also did this quickly to avoid the parts of the year (May to August) when bats are more likely to roost and emerge. If Joe Public is a developer wanting to simply make profit, he is doing it 'correctly'. It is highly unlikely Joe Public wants to be popular with the locals.

If no application is even in with the Council yet, then any plans you hear Joe Public talking about are hot air. True, he may have favourable pre-application advice on his side, but until it's been approved the plans are nothing more than his dream, and during the application stage public pressure could easily influence the outcome, if it's applied properly and relevantly. 

My advice is to wait for notification of an application (either a letter through the door or a site notice on a lamp post outside, or both), and then go have a look at the plans. If they're disagreeable then begin forming your objections. Objections should be on the following matters...

• Intensity of development
• Design and appearance
• Highway matters (parking, access and highway safety)
• Loss of privacy
• Loss of light
• Protection of the countryside
• Protection of listed buildings, conservation areas and archaeological remains
• Control of pollution and noise

If the application is contrary to planning policy and there are no material considerations that outweigh the conflict with planning policy, it should be refused irrespective of whether a single or a dozen or a hundred objections are logged. On the flip side, if there are no planning reasons to refuse permission then even 1000 objections may not overide the Council's decision to approve.

The applicant's past behaviour is not a valid objection. The selling of the land to the applicant (and land ownership in general) is not a valid objection. The impact on your house's value is not a valid objection. Any Councillors who come out to the site and see people generally doing things deliberately to sabotage the applicant's chances will likely take a dim view of your behaviour. 

Happy to have a gander at any plans when they come in if you like. 

[Zelandeth]

2 hours ago, wuvvum said:

That depends on the size of the brown envelope the developer slips to the Council's planning dept under the table.

I'm not about to blindly leap to the defence of Councils....They are often some of the most incompetent and backwards organisations in the world.  However things aren't often as black and white as it might appear to the onlooker who hasn't had a chance to see what actually goes on behind the scenes.  I've had that look, so can provide a bit of input on what I've seen going on in ONE Local Authority.  I don't doubt for a minute that back-hand deals do happen in some areas, though I was never aware of having seen anything like that were I was.

While I didn't actually work in Planning, I worked quite closely with them during my time in the Council.  Heck, my role meant that I had fingers in pies pretty much across the whole building to be honest.  I was there for eight and a half years, so long enough to see how things work.

Something that it's all too easy to forget about where Councils are concerned.  The person you speak to on the phone, or get a letter from etc may well agree that whatever is going on is absolutely mental.  However the folks who actually make the decisions on a lot of things like these are the Councillors.  The officers who actually scramble around doing the research, figuring out what's actually going to happen make the *recommendations* to the Council in the reports, and speaking at the Council session etc...but there's absolutely nothing they can do if the decision is made to do the exact opposite of what has been recommended (within the scope of the law obviously).  If The Council says jump, you as an officer of the Council have to jump...no matter how absolutely stupid it is.  Believe me...when you've gone in there confident that your project will get the green light as it's going to essentially cost nothing, is going to only have benefits to the community, will paint the Council in a good light and be a good news story all around...and to have it turned down purely because of the elected members all voting along party lines (i.e. the Councillors aligned with one party will vote no if their rival party votes yes) makes you want to smash your head against the nearest brick wall.  Especially when the general public phone you up (I had a public facing phone number and email address so got both barrels frequently!) and you have to explain that you cannot do anything because "it is the view of the council that this action is not appropriate at this time."

I can't recall if small one-off planning applications required committee involvement, I don't think so...I think they were usually handled entirely at the officer level, but the bigger one *definitely* did.

I loved a huge amount of my job.  No two days were the same, I worked among one of the best teams of people I could have ever asked for, and it was great actually seeing the work I was doing having a positive impact in the real world.  It was also great being able to turn around a lot of angry people who expected to get nothing but a canned response from the council around when the first thing I'd usually ask to do when they came to me with a problem was "Okay then, I'd like to meet with you to see the issues first hand and I'll see what we can do about it then."  Discovering that they were speaking to a real human being to was actually taking an interest in what they were talking about defused probably 85% of the angry rants.  Well...except for those people who refused to believe that the Council hasn't actually been responsible for running the bus services since deregulation in 1985 and that it in fact was NOT my fault that their bus was running late...There really was no winning with those calls...and after a few years could usually identify them within about ten seconds - even if they came through on the phone belonging to one of my co-workers rather than mine!  They would see me making the "Put them through to me then..." signal we had before they'd even got a few sentences in.

I also took a lot of pride in the fact that I walked into an infrastructure management role with an £85K maintenance budget that was fully committed and the infrastructure in an absolute mess.  Within a few years I'd got things (mostly!) tidied up, and when we had to shed money left right and centre like everyone else, I managed to keep things going - when I left I was still managing to keep things in decently good order on £30K because I was actually managing things proactively rather than just blindly copying what had been done for the last 40 years.  I also understood the concept of spending money to save money, which is massively difficult to get through to a lot of finance departments!  However it turns out being stubborn can be a real asset working in that sort of organisation, I'm pretty sure they approved a lot of my purchase orders just to get rid of me!

The bureaucracy and political infighting though - especially when things had to go to full Council Committee (no party had overall control where I was - so anything that went to a Full Council session was doomed before it even started 90% of the time) - absolutely did my head in.  As did the tendency of the organisation as a whole to bite its nose off to spite its face, and the complete and utter inability of them to get their priorities straight.  See also: Spending tens (it actually ended up being hundreds) of millions on a new corporate HQ (which didn't work half as well as the old one!) because people thought the old building was an eyesore, and it needed somewhere between £2-5M spending on it to make it good for the next 50 years.  Oh...and they signed a 100 year lease on the building the new HQ was to be built in...many months before a surveyor even set foot through the door, and discovered that the entire building was utterly rotten and the only thing they were able to salvage was the facade.  See also my earlier comments about who actually makes the decisions!

 

 

Everything else aside, don't forget that the bigger developers are absolutely not beyond using strong-arm tactics either.  The "You better green light this or we're walking away from that school we're halfway through building" sort of nonsense does absolutely happen.  There aren't many players at the larger end of the market, so it's all too easy for them to find something they can use as "leverage" against the Council.  Especially given the dire financial state most of them are in.

Yes, I've been there in the meeting and have seen that sort of threat being made in person.  More than once.

[danthecapriman]

@rantingYoof

Thanks a lot for that, very useful info and much appreciated!

For now, I’ll just sit and wait to see what happens. I’m not going to let it rule my life or get me down either, so I’ll just see.

In the short term, they want to get the boundary fencing sorted and I see no reason not to accept his offer on this. It’s a win for us both tbh. He’s told us the whole fence, front and back gardens along that border with his land will be replaced as well as a waist height brick wall that’s about to fall over that forms part of that boundary. It’s a 2M height fence and he intends to upgrade it with 30mm concrete gravel boards and concrete posts, so it’ll be done properly. Good of him to offer this imho.

Once that’s done, I’ll continue with my tree & hedge planting!

When the time comes, I might take you up on the offer to have a look over the plans if you don’t mind. That should give an honest unbiased view.

Thanks again!

 

[rantingYoof]

Happy to help. 

What you might do in the meantime is familiarise yourself with where your local Council digitally stores all of its adopted planning policies and design guidance etc. There will be pretty black and white guidelines on what is and what isn't acceptable in terms of amenity impacts on neighbours, looking at distances between boundaries and buildings, how far windows should be from other windows, what constitutes a habitable room etc. If you get the gen on this now you won't have to scramble around finding it out down the line when you find out the application has been in.

This is 'ours', for what it's worth. It should be comparable between authorities really, although I imagine urban-based Councils (with lots of enclosed streets) probably have less stringent window-to-window distance regulations!
https://tinyurl.com/y73c8wyu (PDF file)

[00833827]

So have some stuff i want to get cleared from end of the garden this weekend so borrowed a trailer using my newly aquired Kangoo.  "Where did that come from?" Hey once i get the garden cleared this weekend i should be ok ? 

[xtriple]

When I went out the other day I noticed a few things which were, er, noteworthy: Police everywhere, cars, estates, vans. In Torbay you can normally go (without a word of a lie) weeks and not see a single Police vehicle so where did all this lot come from? I went through the town centre and while most things were shut up tight there were still the odd people wandering around. I saw two people stopped by a Police car and questioned, not idea what was said but after a few minutes the fols went on their merry way while the PCs went on theirs. I wasn't being nosy: they stopped so far away from the walkers (to keep their social distance) they blocked both sides of the road.

When I went to the park (bad person, BAD!) I was amazed at how much everything had chnged in a little over three weeks: weeds everywhere and growing right through the park benches, the fence that demarks the cliff edge was now invisible behind growth and the llandscape had really changed. It seems that in a few weeks the world would forget all about humans...

[New POD]

Tha day of the triffids ? 

[New POD]

In defence of planners.  My uncle worked as a planner on chelmsley wood on the edge of solihul/Birmingham. In the 50s.  Massive council estate.  He said his one single thing that he's proud of was being the one that insisted that there was a garage available for every single unit. Even a one bed retirement bungalow needs a garage. 

I reckon every new house should be forced to have a double garage underneath it if land is expensive.