Hiding a house...

[FeFiDoh]

Planners/Council are a complete pain in the ass, having worked in the building industry for a while even do such simple things as extensions you have to jump through so many hoops just to make them happy.

Also im pretty sure he applied SEVERAL TIMES over years to get permission to build this and they never got back to him!

 

[borich_planner]

And what's worrying is, like all planners, he believes he's actually providing the country with a useful service, rather than a massive economic and social drag effect that makes life harder for everyone...

Without us planners this country would be a mess, everyone building what they want where the want..

Borich

 

[Spacedman]

Without us planners this country would be a mess, everyone building what they want where the want..

Borich

Whilst I am no fan of planning authorities, I believe the above to be true. If you live in a historic town it would be ruined.

 

[ripperOFflesh]

he should have built 1 underground or asked for planning like most do

 

[LOAM]

Without us planners this country would be a mess, everyone building what they want where the want..

Borich

Whilst this has an element of truth to it, you (not you personally ) have made a mess of the whole construction process, when the Town and Country Planning Act was brought in, in 1947 it was never intended to become the bloated, bureaucratic and political process that it is now.

i think it looks nice, did he even apply and get refused initially?

Then I'm afraid you need some optical assistance, perhaps an eye test . Mock Tudor is bad enough but to then ram a turret on it, he deserves everything he gets.

I'm glad its coming down, it needs laser targeting and bombing from high altitude.

 

[PESolution]

i remember this guy from Grand Designs, what an idiot. To be honest i dont feel sorry for him in the slightest, if you wana try and "trick" the system, and then openly brag about it on a TV show, your in for trouble

 

[RDM]

Without us planners this country would be a mess, everyone building what they want where the want..

Borich

And yet you still manage to agree to the so many souless housing estates that pop up all over the place. Planning permission is yet another one of those "nice idea, badly implemented" ideas and, while I am sure you and your team are different, seem to be filled with people that like to make things difficult for others.

 

[Dolph]

Without us planners this country would be a mess, everyone building what they want where the want..

Borich

You appear to be confusing the need for some sort of basic planning setup to protect neighbours from harm with the need for the current planning setup...

 

[kwerk]

I don't really understand much about planning laws but why does this chap have it knocked down?, is it becuase it's on public property or something?

It's because they have to keep all those civil servant bureaucrats busy with papers to shuffle around. Oh and they have to keep the housing prices ridiculously high since that's what Britain's "wealth" is built on now.

 

[kwerk]

The reason is usually that the inspector is a complete ****hole.

Round here we get planning refused for not using wooden window frames when all the neighbours use PVC. And my personal favourite, historic buildings must use Welsh slate. This is the Lake District, a slate producing area, and we can't use Cumbrian slate.

Took my mum 10 years to get planning permission. So many hoops to jump through. For example they made her have those grid looking windows with lots of panes, of course they tell her after she has already bought extremely expensive energy efficient windows. She had some wooden frames made up to stick on the windows to look like that, and just threw them away after after all the boxes were ticked on some non-jobber's clipboard.

 

[MattTheTall77]

I like it, looks a nice house, but the fact he was hiding it for so many years proves he knew he was in the wrong when he started and I think it's right it should be knocked down. he was stupid, he knew the risk.

 

[task]

I don't see the issue with this building, it's nice looking (far better than the massive barns that get knocked together for "agricultural" use). Yes he attempted to exploit a loophole in the law and seemingly has failed, this was only because somone decided long ago to preserve the man made state that we call "countryside" . Having grown up in a very rural location and being unable to afford to either purchase or get planning to build a property in the area I can understand why he did this.

 

[Rich_L]

Planners are those people that are a complete PITA when you want to build, but are grateful for when your neighbours want to build some monstrosity next door...

I imagine like most arbitrators their eventual aim is to achieve a compromise that makes everyone the least unhappy, as usually that means they have struck the right balance

Plus it isn't like there are any arbitrary metrics they can use to determine aspects like 'impact on the character' of the surrounding area, as that is all just a matter of opinion and a general feel for the area.

From over in the US, you can see what happens in places where planning laws are more relaxed, the difference between say, Santa Barbara which as a result of strict planning laws has a lovely character and other towns with less strict laws which seem to be a hotchpotch of various construction styles and look like they were just thrown together so the town is quite soulless.

Impossible to assign a 'value' on the character of a place of course, but the difference is still very real.

 

[LOAM]

Maybe I'm biased but I don't think you should be able to build anything without consulting an Architect tbh

 

[JaffaJedi]

Planners/building inspectors = cold blooded lizards

damn jobsworths

 

[Deleted member 651465]

LOL!

I watched a program on it a few years back. It was crazy, he just hid the entire development by parking loads of trailers with highly stacked hay bails and such around it. It's a shame if it does get knocked down, because it's a really nice building. Think of the cost to him as well!

I saw that. Was on GMTV a few years ago

Also, it seems that he would have been fine (to appeal) if he'd left the bails intact?

 

[Westyfield2]

Dolph is spot-on once again..

 

[Macro]

It's green belt land designed to limit the urban sprawl of London and leave us with a little bit of green in "this green and pleasant land".

They guy's a chancer. He knew he wasn't allowed to build there so he took a gamble and lost. Tough.

This wasn't an accidental forgetting to get the right permission to make some alterations to a house. He knew from the start what he was doing was unlawful and chose to ignore that and do it anyway.

It's no different from knowing the speed limit is 70 and taking a chance at doing 95, you might get away with it but there's not going to be much sympathy if you get caught, even if it was an empty motorway at 3am you were doing it.

People like this that think laws and rules are for everyone else get on my ****.

 

[peetee]

I dont see how his house affects the green belt, its quite traditional looking.
Waste of money if its knocked down, money and resources. Be better fining him a lot of money and letting him keep it.
How did he even manage to finish building this? If the planners are that important they should start inspecting anything and everything, patrolling whatever areas they are supposed to cover.

 

[MagicBoy]

He built it on Green Belt. I'll repeat that - GREEN BELT, thinking he could exploit a loophole.

Planning departments can be obstructive if the dimensions are out a little etc and I've got some sympathy for these sorts of cases. Building a mock tudor mansion with a castle attached behind hay bales in Green Belt is epically foolish.

At which point were the local council not going to prosecute him and send in the Bulldozers?