And now, by special request from Steven, an avid reader....

I give you an aerial shot of the plot with a very crude outline of Wee House!

Budding member of the Institute of Map Bodgers (retired) of Clifton

The Parish Council are on the warpath so we have a cunning plan

I have been checking the Parish Council notice board for some weeks now, waiting to see what negative comments they would make on our last (withdrawn) application. For some reason, the meeting they held in early January has only now just been minuted and posted. Rather than just a comment about the visual effect of our house, the parish council have now decided to go for broke. They still feel that our little house would detract from the visual aspects when entering the village, but they now also say that our plot plan is flawed (?), and that they insist on no accommodation in the roof space.

However, the killer punch is that the parish council have voted that their chairman should attend the District Council planning committee meeting when our plan is to be considered, specifically to object to it. How bizarre is that? One of my work colleagues is a parish councillor, and was chairman for 10 years. Not once did anyone from his parish council go to the District Council Planning meeting to object, even though they often opposed major developments in his village.

We really seem to have upset someone, don't we?

Well, it seems that the odds are now stacked against us getting planning permission for our wee house, so we have a cunning plan..............

Baldrick of Clifton

One forward, three back....

OHHHH BOY!!!!

This is a form of therapy, otherwise I might kick a dog, beat myself with a pogo stick, or scream at politicians on the TV - well, alright, I already do that!

In the words of Richard Wilson - "I don't belieeeeve it!".

I received an email from the planning officer this morning telling me that because we intend using the private driveway to access our land (a legal right we have inherited from the original plot) we have to withdraw our application, serve notice on the owner of the driveway and allow 21 days before we can re-submit the planning application. That means that we need to engage a solicitor, generate and serve the notice and then wait 21 days before we can start the whole planning application process again. It looks as though that will mean the 16th March at the earliest before we can re-apply, so decision date comes 10 weeks later - mid May now. Unless of course, another bit of bureaucracy leaps out of the woodwork as it is prone to do, and be of a serial nature.

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The unfortunate effect of this is that the 106 Agreement comes into play because the original planning approval will lapse in April 2009. So we end up paying several thousand pounds that could have been avoided.

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When you watch Grand Designs and hear that people can take 2 years to get planning permission to build a replica of a large shoe box on Chesil Beach, you think, well, yes, but it is rather ugly, and you've done well to get planning approval at all. I now sympathise utterly. In fact I'm amazed that it didn't take longer.

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When I took my plans for review with a senior planning officer he asked if we owned the access drive. I said that we owned half of it and he said no more. Now it appears that it was critical to the whole application. But its only our time and our money - nothing for the council to worry about after all.

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Ever so hacked off, totally pee'd off, absolutely fed up to the gills, disgusted, narked, dejected, aggrieved, enraged, furious, choleric, huffy, mad, sore, and a tad aggressive of Clifton

If there's one thing in life that you can rely on....

...its that you won't get a straight answer from a planning officer!

Having left various messages for our planning officer since her voice mail message changed from "?? is on sick leave", to "This is ??'s phone, I'm not here, please leave a message" I naturally thought she had returned to work. As my telephone messages hadn't elicited a response I found an email address for her today and whacked off an electronic missive asking her to call me. An automated response sped back announcing that ?? would be out of the office until 9th February. So, plan B - email the general planning address, and lo, I received a call this afternoon from a colleague of ??. Yes - you guessed, ?? was still on sick leave. Having explained that I wanted to hold a review meeting with my planning officer before the end of the consultation period (11th February) I was informed that one of the senior planning officers had looked at my application, and thought that it would "probably be recommended for approval", but that it would have to go to the full committee on 11th March for their review. Why can't a planning officer accept some responsibility and give a straight answer? After all, the planning officer will make a recommendation to the planning committee, so why not tell me?

However, before I could vent my frustration, I was informed that there was some considerable doubt as to whether the Section 106 Agreement would apply as ours was a modification to an existing approved application that pre-dated the implementation of the 106 Agreement. This is the agreement that now imposes a "tax" on new builds, which even for a one bedroomed property is about £3500, whilst for a three bedroomed house is £12,500. Fingers crossed on that one then - might even change the design to create a second bedroom if we hear that we are not liable!

Frustrated of Clifton