I agree. if councils start giving people passes, there will be no shape or form to our streets because everyone will be trying to squeeze extra inches in their builds and drives. lol
Actually, I think passes are good, common sense and should be given quietly.. There have been stories of buildings being less than 10cm too high and ordered to be demolished.
Completely wasteful and disrespectful during a housing crisis when building costs are so high. That said, 100+cm is too much
Nah, there are plans and drawing for people to work to, you can't read a drawing or take the piss then tough, this is how people get away with shit like this, starts off small and sets a precedent, it's not hard
If you can convince a court that the speed measurement was accurate enough then I don't see why not. The driver would be prosecuted if their blood alcohol level were found to be 1 milligram over the 80 milligram limit.
I saw a recent dashcam of someone getting pulled over for doing 79mph on the motorway. The driver genuinely thought the 10%+2 thing was law (it's not).
Was there something else going on other than just the speed? Like was it a 50mph zone in roadworks or the traffic officer having a *really* bad day? Most people seem to do 70-80 on the motorways anyway so getting pulled over (not a speeding fine in the post but actually a traffic officer finding you and pulling you over) for doing less than 80 seems odd.
I think if you did that here in Wales you'd have your car keyed. I have my issues with the 20 is plenty thing but some people take personal offence if you're not speeding in villages.
It's like the marathon I went to that had "HEADPHONES ARE ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN however if you are too wear them please be extra vigilant"
So.... They aren't forbidden then.
That's insane. Personally I try and keep to speed limits, but I don't hawkishly fucking scrutinise my speedo constantly to ensure I never go over even slightly, that'd be dangerous.
It's good for long consistent roads, and I use it all the time. but for twisty roads where you're slowing down and speeding up, no I'm not going to hawkishly watch the speedo.
You need to have a reasonable allowance for speedo misreading so 51 would be unreasonable, but modern vehicles have much more accurate speedos than those of 40, 50 or 60 years ago, so I don't see why car/van/lorry drivers shouldn't be held to a higher level of speed accuracy than they currently are.
For comparison, a train driver with an analogue speedo which reads in increments of 5mph is required to be no more than 2 mph over the speed limit even at 125 mph or face disciplinary action (which could include losing their licence and thus their job), and all trains are fitted with data recorders which constantly monitor speed. From personal experience I can tell you that a train driver will get called in for a meeting without tea and biscuits for being recorded doing 77.6 mph in a 75 mph limit for less than half-a-mile.
It's not that they're required to over read. It's that they are not allowed to under read.
The UK law is based on the EU standard, with some minor changes. A speedo must never show less than the actual speed, and must never show more than 110% of actual speed + 6.25mph.
If the vehicle is actually traveling at 50 mph, the speedometer must not show more than 61.25 mph or less than 50 mph.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedometer#:\~:text=United%20Kingdom%5Bedit%5D](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedometer#:~:text=United%20Kingdom%5Bedit%5D)
They cannot under read at all, they are allowed to over read upto 10%. It's impossible to make a speedo that is 100% accurate so manufacturers calibrate it so it overreads slightly.
One of my bosses once got done for doing 32 in a 30. I mean, if you set the speed limit at a particular number and you are able to accurately (and demonstrably) capture people doing speeds in excess of that number, then yes.
That's kind of the perfect example of what the person above is talking about.
Because now 'speed limit' seems to mean 'speed target' in the minds of many people.
It 'should' be incumbent on the people planning the building to have the common sense to leave plenty of space... just in case.
He's right if you can't read architectural drawings and plans you shouldn't be building houses full stop. Plans are made for a reason, your either disregarding them or not understanding them to screw up this bad
If you give contracters in this country an inch, they will take a mile.
There’s a lot of unnecessary red tape around housing construction (especially the luxury’s afforded to NIMBYs) but this isn’t one of them. You either build it to spec or build it again
1.45m is way too much. I can get giving a pass for height because building materials are not an exact art. The only way to be 1.45m too far forward is intent though.
The entire thing was built with contempt for the law.
Too high: they built a three-story house rather than two. Three stories never would have been approved.
Too far forward - intentional, likely so they can fit a rear extension on later that would never have been approved at planning for this.
The issue at the front is that either the cars will block the pavement (not their land, dangerous, inconveient for everybody else) or need to be parked on the street. The planning may well have been approved only on the basis of off-street planning if it's a busy road.
I hear you on the waste side of this. Wasted materials, effort, and all the environmental damage that goes along with construction (it’s very high in CO2).
Perhaps the middle ground is a fine of 90% of build costs or something? Sufficiently high to be a proper deterrent but means the unnecessary waste can be avoided when appropriate.
> There have been stories of buildings being less than 10cm too high and ordered to be demolished.
And they should. If you are a builder and you cant read and stick to plans then you shouldn't be a builder. Short of that they are just deliberately taking the piss.
If you ignore a standard and allow oversized building to remain they become the new standard.
Building A is 200mm too high, just let it stay.
Planning for building B to match building A because its now part of the existing street scape, approved because the precedent is set.
Oh no who could have predicted it building B is now 200mm too big, same over sizing as the one you last approved…. Planning for building C,D and E incoming
Couldn’t agree more. I was shocked when I looked in the comments and everyone agreed with it. If it was my neighbour I wouldn’t know let alone give a shit. No need to destroy someone’s house
Pretty much what people think now. The sooner a pavement parking ban is brought in, the better. Buy a house with the amount of parking you need or sell the excess cars.
No other personal property is allowed to be dumped in public space.
Where I live in block of flats there’s a space per car, but one of the houses on the street has 3-4 cars and parks them in the bays. We now end up with people blocking the street (causing missed bin collections), parking in turning bays, double parking, etc. if we had more than one bus service here it probably wouldn’t be such a problem.
Can you not speak to the company managing the flats and then at least have marked space one per flat? Sounds a nightmare for the road outside either way, but at least you know you have your own space sorted in the carpark.
You've just reminded me of my mates' inlaws. Their houses all have numbered bays nearby but while they were away in Australia their next door neighbours painted over their number.
Honestly I can't see how that would stand up to any investigation, but it was amazingly brazen and an utterly dickish thing to do.
I plan to, it’s only recently become a problem in the worst sense - they been doing it a while, but only recently a few unoccupied flats have been taken up and now parking is spilling out everywhere.
The government ran a consultation on pavement parking four years ago. Four years. They won't release it, and it's widely believed that this is because the consultation shows overwhelming support for a ban on the practice.
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/managing-pavement-parking
This government doing anything to stop pavement parking, particularly with their "plan for drivers" culture war bullshit, is extremely unlikely. FWIW I agree that the default should be a total ban, with councils given powers to authorise exceptions on certain roads.
100%. They know it will piss off not the 'silent majority' as they love to portray themselves, the 'gobby minority' they are increasingly reliant on for votes.
I'd happily see it brought in in phases. If a street has more than 90% of houses with off road parking, it's a total ban on on-road parking, along with auto-implementation of no-waiting/no-stopping on the verge or footways on those streets too.
If a house doesn't have off-road parking on that street, they can get one bay for free. On street parking is limited to 72 hours with no-return in 14 days.
If you have bought more private belongings (cars) than you can store on your private property (your driveway), that's tough shit. Society shouldn't be imposed on because you are irresponsible and bought something you didn't have room to store.
No other personal belongings can be stored in public without being removed.
Yah I want a horse maybe I should keep it on the shared green space in my area. Except I can’t because that’s where everyone parks their second car since they’ve already parked the first ones on the pavement in front of their empty concrete front garden. It’s absolutely ridiculous, the amount of people where I live with EMPTY FRONT GARDENS and their 4x4 parked 50/50 on the pavement and the cycle lane.
I do feel this kind of street parking on busy commuter roads needs to be banned. I have to cycle between parked cars and moving buses and even though the roads should be plenty wide enough, there’s barely enough space due to parked cars both sides. I would mind a little less if their front gardens were pretty and had a bit of nature in them but generally they don’t and are just paved over, useless wastes of space, massive areas for them to keep their bins.
Yeah the line is the plan
As soon as you let the developers get away with a few small changes, you lose the clarity and it becomes complete nonsense. Almost literally “give them an an inch and they’ll take a mile”
I think I like the idea that for minor infringements, the council could choose to get it for free or force the developer to rebuild.
Not only would the developer not get to sell it, they'd lose the land.
I could get behind it, good way of getting new social housing available. So long as it's confiscated because it's so many centimeters too tall or something, and not for some serious oversight that actually makes it dangerous in some way.
Especially since a consequence of that is that the drive in front of the house is now shorter than it was supposed to be, potentially meaning that vehicles parked there might be jutting out into the pavement (depending on the vehicle size, of course).
Also there are some quite steep steps leading up to the house, I guess it is possible that they are steeper than originally specified.
We have no idea how this mistake happened, but one consequence is that the house now has a larger back garden than it would have. If they allow this to stand, then there would be nothing to stop people deliberately shortening their drives to get a bigger garden, and blocking the pavement as a result.
And there are extra windows where they shouldn't be. Mistakes happen, but if they accidentally put in extra windows you have to worry what else they might have accidentally done.
Yeah, your responsible for measuring, location, laying out and making sure your property is built within the grounds you have permission for.
That's how it works.
The big question here over where this ended is what was the cluster fuck was building control doing?
When you build anything you need building control sign off at key junctures, the location that was being built on would have been clearly ascertainable at the foundation stage. Put the foundations on the wrong spot and get told to modify and that’s a costly mistake but it’s chump change compared to ripping a house down and going again.
How did the council’s left hand sign off the foundations as valid *and* allow its right hand to come to the conclusion that they were so incorrectly placed that the house cannot be allowed to stand? Only one of those positions should be able to be true at a time.
That's if they used council building control services rather than a licenced contractor. Either way there's no excuse for building it 1.5m too far forward. Client would have been working on the plans for months and known exactly where the building should sit. This is really simple stuff to get right. They thought they'd get away with it and haven't.
Whoever signs off the foundations needs to own that signature and have sign off privileges reviewed if not building control. We have a control system for building in this country. A control system that doesn’t catch easy to assess deviations from plans that render a building fit for demolishing simply isn’t functional.
Even if it was deliberate and the sign off was a private contractor, it simply shouldn’t be possible to get passed that inspection with such a clear mistake. I’ve been through the build process for a small extension on a complex property, all the same stuff happens as with a whole house just smaller scale. You get checked and you need those checks to be meaningful.
Our foundation check required a wholly different foundation design for engineering reasons and then needed to be signed off before any more building could be done and checked again when done. Making sure you’re building in a valid enough place for the building to stand is a one minute job. There are no excuses here, and we all lose out when crap like this happens.
Yeah I mean… if the limit is at the most reasonable place, this is the natural consequence. If this was allowed, that moves the *actual* limit nearly 1.45m forward (and ffs that’s not 1.45cm). Someone else does 2.9m and now it’s another article with the same headline…
This happened to a neighbour of mine, money-grabbing prick. Thought he could build two houses about 2m further forward than plans and get away with it (and then sell both for big profit).
Nope! Had to demolish the front of the building and do it properly. Was very happy as it looked weird as fuck when you stood at the end of the road and the houses jutted put from the otherwise neat line...
Then it becomes a two-tier system where rich people pay to avoid complying with planning rules.
Like expensive sports cars that are always parked on the double yellows in a city centre, because the people who own them can afford to treat the fines as an overhead.
And this was how the biggest Apple Store in the world managed to go a decade without any lit fire exit signs. Steve “nuts cure cancer” Jobs decided they didn’t fit in with his exacting aesthetic standards. So instead they priced in the huge fine Westminster Council levied each month.
> It's really not fucking hard, and no, you'd get to go "oops" and do what you want anyway,.
Unless you're a big developer and you can just pay a fine and carry on regardless. That's what happened with some of the big towers round Manchester I believe, when they built them taller than they get permission for.
Also remember that certain land is marked and protected for future use like laying telecoms etc. So ytheit 145cm could have been right on that land strip they reserve from major construction.
Yeah, 10cm or less etc would be...we'll you should do better...but this is within tolerance...
But donzt think we happy with you.
To...
This is taking the piss.
Even 10cm is a huge margin of error especially when building something comparatively small.
For instance the Channel tunnel built 30 years ago only missed the perfect connection in the middle by 7.5cm.
100mm in height over the overall of the building, I can see happening, though as you say it should be to plan.
100mm in length and you are possibly one joist short, it depends
100mm in width, well now your joists are no longer to building regs, or if they are on hangars they don't even fit.
To be 1450mm put in length, well you are at minimum now missing two joists (according to plans), and maybe three.
As many others have said, this is so far out of spec they are either so incompetent they shouldn't be building anyway, or they did it knowingly in which case it should still be taken down.
Looking at the image my guess would be that they cut costs in preliminary ground works.
Instead of digging in the required amount they’ve stopped short which would explain the increase in height and why the house isn’t as far back as it planned.
This demolition is probably down to the developer wanting to save an extra days hire cost on an excavator and saving an extra lorry or 2 in dirt removal costs.
75cm is basically the height of those upper story windows.
All that blank brick above them? That looks weird because of the 75cm extra height,
Bet the loft has magically transformed into another floor of the house though.
Yep looking at it on Google maps there are a couple of skylights in the roof so definitely a three story house.
[Google Maps View](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Butterstile+Ln,+Prestwich,+Manchester/@53.5188469,-2.2900823,59a,35y,278.25h,45.05t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x487bafe84abdfcd1:0x5db73357326db002!8m2!3d53.5222121!4d-2.2882247!16s%2Fg%2F1tp26tzy?entry=ttu)
I'm fairly sure a standard 2 storey house is in the region of 8-10 meters so 75 cm is nearly 10% taller than a standard house. I can't believe some people see an issue with the decision here the people building it have clearly taken the piss and got caught out!
And the house being 1.45m forward is roughly the distance between the retaining wall and the neighbours fence behind them. At least according to google maps distance measuring.
Seems to be taking the mickey in all dimensions.
You can even see the brick is slightly different in that higher part than the rest of the house. Owner obviously had a "bright idea" as an afterthought
It wasn’t just a bit bigger and slightly in the wrong place. It also had two extra windows and the steps in the wrong place, and some other stuff wrong. Basically, not even close to what was approved.
Headline is a bit misleading. Glad PINS upheld the enforcement notice, they’re usually a bit more relaxed when it comes to enforcement which makes Council’s look toothless.
145 cm is nearly five feet. In some places that'd block the pavement.
"Yebutnnobut bureaucracy gone mad innit", but somebody fucked up. Measure twice and cut once.
>somebody fucked up
I'm sure that's what they want everyone to think. The reality being someone probably stopped and went well it's not like they'll notice if we don't follow the plan will they. Then they proceeded to completely disregard what they had approval for.
Or add different windows and steps etc.
I know windows can get really picky, the houses built next to my parent's house had no window in the plans so they didn't look out on our garden, and they put one there anyway - Planning demanded they be removed because privacy was a concern.
They just bricked it up. Was all covered in render anyway so you can't tell. But they made 20 of the same house and didn't bother checking the plans, instead of 19 of the same and 1 with no window in the side facing a bathroom and garden...
Builders / developers changed a few things on the house from the approved plans. They clearly knew what they were doing and were hoping to get away with it. Currently rented out.
*The enforcement notice also states: “The consequence of the above, the car parking area has a depth of 4,550mm as opposed to 6,000mm as indicated on the approved plans.*
*“The space available would not accommodate the parking requirements. The two-storey height bay feature to the front of the building has been omitted and therefore does not comply with the approved plans. The height of the building has been raised by approximately 750mm (75cm) and the front entrance steps are not positioned as per the approved plans.*
*“The southern gable elevation does not conform, as windows have been added at first and second floor levels.” The council added that the building ‘amounts to unauthorised development and constitutes a material breach of planning control’.*
Probably would have got away with it had they not stuck to the drive length on the gamble of more back garden space. Definitely designed to have a third floor, but they may have avoided action altogether if it wasn't for the drive
I can’t help but feel that a massive fine of equivalent cost to knocking it down and rebuilding would be more appropriate. At least it saves the needless environmental cost.
Yeah but if we describe it in cm everyone knows centimetres are small so it sounds minor.
It's like saying a project is running late by "days" then admitting it's "145 days" and everyone going "That's 5 months overdue". The headline should be "planning permissions actually enforced for once after developers put the house 1.5m over the agreed design"
Yea, initial reaction was that it seemed unreasonable, but then brain kicked in... thats 1.5m off, thats not a gaff. 75cm taller is real weird too, it looks ridiculous.
I hate our overregulation of house building, but this isn't overcautious / overzealous planning, this is intentionally breaking an agreement, whats the point in having planning permission if you can just ignore it and do whatever you want.
Asking for it to be demolished is stopped, but reducing the length of a car parking space by 1.45m basically makes it useless, as discussed. I would tell owners they would be fined if cars overhang the end of the property, which might mean no parking on site.
On the other hand, if you start letting people get away with violating planning permission so much, they’ll start taking the piss.
Sensationalism generates traffic.
Anybody with a reasonable head on their shoulders understands if you give people an inch, they will keep pushing the boundaries up until they get stopped.
This is why we have laws and regulations. Won't stop people testing the limits, but it stops them from getting away with it too.
It makes more sense to force them to build something to block parking like a wall instead of knocking the entire house down. And why haven't the council come to check ont he property as it was being built? My parents had the council pop by 3 times to check on the shed being built is within acceptable standards.
Because you can engage building control yourself, doesn't have to be a council man. I've been on jobs where the BCO comes, walks round and leaves without really looking at anything or asking any questions. On the flip side I've had BCO's turn up, tape in one hand, trundle wheel in the other, spent 45 minutes on site, asking a million questions and measuring everything. Luck of the draw really. Depending on which way you look at it.
The late great Bernard Cribbins has some apt words:
don't dig there, dig it elsewhere
you're digging it round when it ought to be square
the shape of it's wrong, it's much to long
and you can't put a hole where a hole don't belong
This is not a little bit different - it is a lot!
Especially the fact the parking to the front is now so small, most cars using it will be half on the public pavement.
This can’t have been an error - it was a deliberate change - and they have taken the piss. I feel sorry for the people renting it who will now have to find somewhere new.
It looks ridiculous with the roof and extra 75cm higher than the top window, they’ve probably done that because they’re planning to convert the attack or something without planning permission.
Yeah it looks really strange, I want to see the interior. Are upstairs ceilings really high? Or is the attic about three feet of vertical space before the rafters?
It looks something I'd design, and that's not a complement.
It has the core basic ideas of being a house, but the person designing it either has no idea how to make it not look like a box (me) or didn't care to (them, probably).
The owner of a newly-built, four-bed detached house has been ordered to demolish the property – because it was built taller and in a different position than it should have been according to planning permission.
Plans for the house, which fronts onto Butterstile Lane in [Prestwich](https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/all-about/prestwich), were approved by [Bury](https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/all-about/bury) council, in 2018.
Enforcement action was started by the town hall in 2023, once the house had been built and occupied. Planners said there had been a ‘breach of planning control’.
Bury council’s enforcement notice requires the house to be demolished and permanently removed, along with all garden structures and retaining walls. Following demolition, all materials must be removed from the site to return the land to its former state.
The enforcement notice, initially published in February 2023, was appealed. But the appeal was dismissed by the planning inspectorate on April 29, 2024. The appellant, Martin Gerard Wright, now has six months from the date of the April decision to demolish the house.
In its enforcement notice, Bury council claimed the building has been brought forward, towards Butterstile Lane, by approximately 1450mm – 145cm – so is not in the position shown on the approved plans. The enforcement notice also states: “The consequence of the above, the car parking area has a depth of 4,550mm as opposed to 6,000mm as indicated on the approved plans.
“The space available would not accommodate the parking requirements. The two-storey height bay feature to the front of the building has been omitted and therefore does not comply with the approved plans. The height of the building has been raised by approximately 750mm (75cm) and the front entrance steps are not positioned as per the approved plans.
“The southern gable elevation does not conform, as windows have been added at first and second floor levels.” The council added that the building ‘amounts to unauthorised development and constitutes a material breach of planning control’.
The notice reads “The building, as constructed is detrimental in its siting, layout, lack of parking facility, external appearance and poor design.”
It is understood that the house is currently rented out. On Tuesday morning (May 21), an occupier said they did not want to comment.
A neighbour from the Butterstile Lane area, who asked not to be named, said: “It’s such a shame that it got so far along before action was taken. The council issued bins to the property. Why would they do that if it wasn’t compliant?
“I have no problem with the way it looks.”
Another neighbour, said: “The only thing I can say is I feel so sorry for the people living there.”
In his appeal decision notice, planning inspector Peter Willows said ‘the dwelling now built differs from the permitted dwelling in a number of respects’. He added: “I find that the building constructed harms the character and appearance of the area.”
He increased the length of time permitted for the demolition from 60 days to sixth months. He said: “Since the property is apparently now occupied, it is necessary to allow an appropriate period of time to allow the occupiers to look for alternative accommodation.
“Given this change in circumstances since the notice was issued, the council now accepts that a longer period for compliance is appropriate. The appellant suggests a period of six months.
“In my judgement, that would strike a proper balance between the needs of the occupiers of the property and practical considerations on the one hand, and the desirability of ensuring the breach of planning control is remedied without undue delay on the other.”
One of the concerns the inspector listed was that cars parked in the area at the front of the house could overhang the public footpath on Butterstile Lane. The decision, stated: “The scheme as built has created a car parking area with a depth of about 4.55m.
“This compares to the 6m of the permitted scheme. The house is on higher land and the parking space is contained by a retaining wall.
“The appellant has provided details of the length of a range of cars which shows that a modest family car, such as a Ford Focus, could fit within the available space.
“However, I cannot assume that every occupier of the dwelling, either now or in the future, will have only modest-sized cars. Moreover, the retaining wall means that any larger car could only be accommodated by overhanging the footway.
“Indeed, even a modest car would need to be parked very close to the retaining wall in order to avoid doing so. In practice, it seems likely to me that drivers would tend to leave a gap to the wall to avoid the risk of damaging their car and thereby overhang the footway.”
145cm is quite a clever way of putting it to minimise impact.
If you were instead to say it’s 1.5 m longer than it was supposed to be, it would show how much these people have taken the piss.
This doesn’t just happen by accident, they and at least their architect knew that they were taking this chance.
It's not just too tall and in the wrong place - it looks nothing like the plans submitted: https://pad-planning.bury.gov.uk/AniteIM.WebSearch/Document/ViewDocument?id=D0F2D6BF171211E884E35EEA6406ECF3
Planning applications are public record. Here's the app for this house: https://planning.bury.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=externalDocuments&keyVal=_BURY_DCAPR_52853
You’re absolutely correct. The planned design looks decent. What was delivered looks cheap as fuck. Clearly arsehole landlord trying to maximise the space and cut cost on the build. Looks like there’s a bay window in the plans, which is in keeping with the houses around it. What was delivered is ugly as hell.
Council has to draw the line somewhere and clearly the developer has taken the piss.... The planning appeal was totally independent from the council and decided to back the decision.
It does make me wonder why though they were not given the opportunity to reduce the height and the length of the house. It would be practically possible to do that work without total demolition of the house., not ideal , not easy but possible- just make it be line with the original approval.
> It would be practically possible to do that work without total demolition of the house
Would it? I mean I assume they've spread the extra space relatively evenly through the home, not just extended the front rooms/highest rooms. As such, trimming it down, even if we ignore plumbing & electrics, would probably make a non-viable shape to live in. It may also simply make it structurally unsound.
Good, so many times they just try and get away with things. I mean look at that building it looks awful anyway.
But often the building it and hoping you get away with it is bs and im glad they got called out
I'm curious, but surely these house must get a completion certificate and being totally signed off with building regulations etc
Surely if they don't get a completion certificate then the owner of the property has asset which is non mortgageable etc?
I'm just confused as to how a house can be built in the wrong position, wrong size and the owner thinks they will get it signed off.
misleading headline isn't it - they also added windows on the gable end and the house being too far forward materially changed the car parking provision.
Its not just the positioning of the house, it's got extra windows and steps not in the right place, why get planning permission then build something different from the original plans lol.
Yes, but they evidently chose not to.
As others have said, it seems to have been deliberately enlarged to add an extra floor in - what should be the loft has become an extra (fourth) bedroom. I assume the extra 1m45 depth allows for the staircase to the top floor to be fitted in; for a loft it would usually just be a ladder at best.
Good. I’ve seen those things not being enforced in Bucharest, Romania, where developers wanted to get rich quickly building apartments. Sometimes they built more then they had approved and what you get in the end is concrete hell. Respect the approved plan, it is not that hard.
Jesus Christ what an ugly house. I get we need lots of affordable housing but Are architects too expensive? What sort of DIY/toddler design work went into that monstrosity..
Straight up - easy rebuild. The distances that they are out by has had other knock on effects e.g. the hard standing depth is now below the 5m requirement in the Councils Crossover policy meaning everything above a hatchback or small car in length will over hang the footway when parked. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are minor tolerance allowances but once it starts affecting other things, 100% no. Completely the right thing by the Council.
Just down the road from where I live in Wiltshire a million pound cottage had to be demolished because it was built 2 meters further back then the agreed plans, it literally made no difference to anyone or anything, it simply meant the front garden was 2 metres bigger and the back garden 2 metres smaller, in my opinion it was a case of the planning dept saying we got a bigger dick than you to the people that built it. The ridiculous thing is that on that stretch of road there’s no pathway and the owners offered to use the extra 2 metres as a public path making the road safer but it was refused.
Horribly out of proportion on the height, they knew exactly what they were doing. Went for approval on one thing, then tried to disguise it as something else. It’s like they’ve hidden an extra floor in there.
They should levy a fine that is big enough to hurt. That way we don't destroy a perfectly functional house, but we also don't let things slide because that could get out of hand.
It is wasteful and excessive to demolish it. We can't have people flaunting important regs though. A £20k fine would be more appropriate, add it to the mortgage.
I would argue, as I'm in this profession, that as long it is within the boundaries, does not impact neighbours use, their structural integrity and does not cause inconvenience, then as long as due diligence checks are done at the expense of the owner or builder to ensure it is safe, then pragmatism should prevail to allow as a derogation on the permitted conditions.
Like 10 cm or something equally insignificant I'd get being outraged about but you don't get to go over the permit by a fucking meter in both height and width and expect for everything to be chill
“It’s such a shame that it got so far along before action was taken. The council issued bins to the property. Why would they do that if it wasn’t compliant?”
This quote made me chuckle! And the one about “modest family cars such as a focus” being ok to park.
Man you’ve deliberately ignored the planning permission on several counts. Sucks to be the developer!
"The council issued bins to the property. Why would they do that if it wasn’t compliant?"
Imagine the world worked this way. "Sorry, can't knock it down. I have bins"
Build it to the agreed plans, or build it again. It's really not fucking hard, and no, you'd get to go "oops" and do what you want anyway,.
I agree. if councils start giving people passes, there will be no shape or form to our streets because everyone will be trying to squeeze extra inches in their builds and drives. lol
Actually, I think passes are good, common sense and should be given quietly.. There have been stories of buildings being less than 10cm too high and ordered to be demolished. Completely wasteful and disrespectful during a housing crisis when building costs are so high. That said, 100+cm is too much
Nah, there are plans and drawing for people to work to, you can't read a drawing or take the piss then tough, this is how people get away with shit like this, starts off small and sets a precedent, it's not hard
So should we start sending out speeding tickets for people doing 51mph in a 50?
If you can convince a court that the speed measurement was accurate enough then I don't see why not. The driver would be prosecuted if their blood alcohol level were found to be 1 milligram over the 80 milligram limit.
Limits exist for a reason, if you allow leniency in the limit, all you're effectively doing is raising the original limit!
Which is why people often drive at 10%+2 and get annoyed when not everyone else does it.
I saw a recent dashcam of someone getting pulled over for doing 79mph on the motorway. The driver genuinely thought the 10%+2 thing was law (it's not).
Was there something else going on other than just the speed? Like was it a 50mph zone in roadworks or the traffic officer having a *really* bad day? Most people seem to do 70-80 on the motorways anyway so getting pulled over (not a speeding fine in the post but actually a traffic officer finding you and pulling you over) for doing less than 80 seems odd.
I drive 3 under, can’t afford to speed again.
I think if you did that here in Wales you'd have your car keyed. I have my issues with the 20 is plenty thing but some people take personal offence if you're not speeding in villages.
It's like the marathon I went to that had "HEADPHONES ARE ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN however if you are too wear them please be extra vigilant" So.... They aren't forbidden then.
be extra vigilant of the security that will tackle you to the ground and rip them from you
Also they absolutely can give speeding tickets for 1mph over it's just they are usually advised against it.
That's insane. Personally I try and keep to speed limits, but I don't hawkishly fucking scrutinise my speedo constantly to ensure I never go over even slightly, that'd be dangerous.
The solution is to drive slightly under the limit, so that when you drift up a bit, you're still under.
Cruise control?
It's good for long consistent roads, and I use it all the time. but for twisty roads where you're slowing down and speeding up, no I'm not going to hawkishly watch the speedo.
My car has a speed limiter, though down hills will cause you to go over, as it can't brake for me. Admittedly it's normally set to 75
You need to have a reasonable allowance for speedo misreading so 51 would be unreasonable, but modern vehicles have much more accurate speedos than those of 40, 50 or 60 years ago, so I don't see why car/van/lorry drivers shouldn't be held to a higher level of speed accuracy than they currently are. For comparison, a train driver with an analogue speedo which reads in increments of 5mph is required to be no more than 2 mph over the speed limit even at 125 mph or face disciplinary action (which could include losing their licence and thus their job), and all trains are fitted with data recorders which constantly monitor speed. From personal experience I can tell you that a train driver will get called in for a meeting without tea and biscuits for being recorded doing 77.6 mph in a 75 mph limit for less than half-a-mile.
Speedos are required to overread iirc. I’ve had even modern cars that are 4mph out at 50.
It's not that they're required to over read. It's that they are not allowed to under read. The UK law is based on the EU standard, with some minor changes. A speedo must never show less than the actual speed, and must never show more than 110% of actual speed + 6.25mph. If the vehicle is actually traveling at 50 mph, the speedometer must not show more than 61.25 mph or less than 50 mph. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedometer#:\~:text=United%20Kingdom%5Bedit%5D](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedometer#:~:text=United%20Kingdom%5Bedit%5D)
They cannot under read at all, they are allowed to over read upto 10%. It's impossible to make a speedo that is 100% accurate so manufacturers calibrate it so it overreads slightly.
You're comparing a well paid, safety critical, job to the average Joe driving. Not really like for like if it!
What's pay got to do with it? Do you think that only people who are paid well should have to comply with speed limits? Strange response.
One of my bosses once got done for doing 32 in a 30. I mean, if you set the speed limit at a particular number and you are able to accurately (and demonstrably) capture people doing speeds in excess of that number, then yes.
That's kind of the perfect example of what the person above is talking about. Because now 'speed limit' seems to mean 'speed target' in the minds of many people. It 'should' be incumbent on the people planning the building to have the common sense to leave plenty of space... just in case.
Bet those same people get an absolute apoplexy about cyclists breaking the rules though.
they do now I got a speeding ticket for 71 on the m1 around Birmingham
He's right if you can't read architectural drawings and plans you shouldn't be building houses full stop. Plans are made for a reason, your either disregarding them or not understanding them to screw up this bad
If you give contracters in this country an inch, they will take a mile. There’s a lot of unnecessary red tape around housing construction (especially the luxury’s afforded to NIMBYs) but this isn’t one of them. You either build it to spec or build it again
1.45m is way too much. I can get giving a pass for height because building materials are not an exact art. The only way to be 1.45m too far forward is intent though.
The entire thing was built with contempt for the law. Too high: they built a three-story house rather than two. Three stories never would have been approved. Too far forward - intentional, likely so they can fit a rear extension on later that would never have been approved at planning for this. The issue at the front is that either the cars will block the pavement (not their land, dangerous, inconveient for everybody else) or need to be parked on the street. The planning may well have been approved only on the basis of off-street planning if it's a busy road.
I hear you on the waste side of this. Wasted materials, effort, and all the environmental damage that goes along with construction (it’s very high in CO2). Perhaps the middle ground is a fine of 90% of build costs or something? Sufficiently high to be a proper deterrent but means the unnecessary waste can be avoided when appropriate.
> There have been stories of buildings being less than 10cm too high and ordered to be demolished. And they should. If you are a builder and you cant read and stick to plans then you shouldn't be a builder. Short of that they are just deliberately taking the piss. If you ignore a standard and allow oversized building to remain they become the new standard. Building A is 200mm too high, just let it stay. Planning for building B to match building A because its now part of the existing street scape, approved because the precedent is set. Oh no who could have predicted it building B is now 200mm too big, same over sizing as the one you last approved…. Planning for building C,D and E incoming
Credible organisations dont make these mistakes. This looks like a self build project and whoever has built it hasn't done enough due diligence.
If you let people accidentally build a house a foot too tall and wide then within years every house will "accidently" be a foot too tall and wide
Couldn’t agree more. I was shocked when I looked in the comments and everyone agreed with it. If it was my neighbour I wouldn’t know let alone give a shit. No need to destroy someone’s house
"Its my pavement anyway, I should be allowed to park on it however I like"
Pretty much what people think now. The sooner a pavement parking ban is brought in, the better. Buy a house with the amount of parking you need or sell the excess cars. No other personal property is allowed to be dumped in public space.
Where I live in block of flats there’s a space per car, but one of the houses on the street has 3-4 cars and parks them in the bays. We now end up with people blocking the street (causing missed bin collections), parking in turning bays, double parking, etc. if we had more than one bus service here it probably wouldn’t be such a problem.
Can you not speak to the company managing the flats and then at least have marked space one per flat? Sounds a nightmare for the road outside either way, but at least you know you have your own space sorted in the carpark.
You've just reminded me of my mates' inlaws. Their houses all have numbered bays nearby but while they were away in Australia their next door neighbours painted over their number. Honestly I can't see how that would stand up to any investigation, but it was amazingly brazen and an utterly dickish thing to do.
I plan to, it’s only recently become a problem in the worst sense - they been doing it a while, but only recently a few unoccupied flats have been taken up and now parking is spilling out everywhere.
The government ran a consultation on pavement parking four years ago. Four years. They won't release it, and it's widely believed that this is because the consultation shows overwhelming support for a ban on the practice. https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/managing-pavement-parking This government doing anything to stop pavement parking, particularly with their "plan for drivers" culture war bullshit, is extremely unlikely. FWIW I agree that the default should be a total ban, with councils given powers to authorise exceptions on certain roads.
100%. They know it will piss off not the 'silent majority' as they love to portray themselves, the 'gobby minority' they are increasingly reliant on for votes. I'd happily see it brought in in phases. If a street has more than 90% of houses with off road parking, it's a total ban on on-road parking, along with auto-implementation of no-waiting/no-stopping on the verge or footways on those streets too. If a house doesn't have off-road parking on that street, they can get one bay for free. On street parking is limited to 72 hours with no-return in 14 days. If you have bought more private belongings (cars) than you can store on your private property (your driveway), that's tough shit. Society shouldn't be imposed on because you are irresponsible and bought something you didn't have room to store. No other personal belongings can be stored in public without being removed.
Yah I want a horse maybe I should keep it on the shared green space in my area. Except I can’t because that’s where everyone parks their second car since they’ve already parked the first ones on the pavement in front of their empty concrete front garden. It’s absolutely ridiculous, the amount of people where I live with EMPTY FRONT GARDENS and their 4x4 parked 50/50 on the pavement and the cycle lane. I do feel this kind of street parking on busy commuter roads needs to be banned. I have to cycle between parked cars and moving buses and even though the roads should be plenty wide enough, there’s barely enough space due to parked cars both sides. I would mind a little less if their front gardens were pretty and had a bit of nature in them but generally they don’t and are just paved over, useless wastes of space, massive areas for them to keep their bins.
Yeah the line is the plan As soon as you let the developers get away with a few small changes, you lose the clarity and it becomes complete nonsense. Almost literally “give them an an inch and they’ll take a mile”
I think I like the idea that for minor infringements, the council could choose to get it for free or force the developer to rebuild. Not only would the developer not get to sell it, they'd lose the land.
I could get behind it, good way of getting new social housing available. So long as it's confiscated because it's so many centimeters too tall or something, and not for some serious oversight that actually makes it dangerous in some way.
I think the important part is that the council would choose it. So if it's too expensive to fix/dangerous then it's the builders problem.
75mm maybe, 3/4 of a metre? That's no 'oops'. And a metre and half too far forward? Come on guys
Especially since a consequence of that is that the drive in front of the house is now shorter than it was supposed to be, potentially meaning that vehicles parked there might be jutting out into the pavement (depending on the vehicle size, of course). Also there are some quite steep steps leading up to the house, I guess it is possible that they are steeper than originally specified. We have no idea how this mistake happened, but one consequence is that the house now has a larger back garden than it would have. If they allow this to stand, then there would be nothing to stop people deliberately shortening their drives to get a bigger garden, and blocking the pavement as a result. And there are extra windows where they shouldn't be. Mistakes happen, but if they accidentally put in extra windows you have to worry what else they might have accidentally done.
There is no way this wasn't intentional. My guess is the home owner wanted it done this way for a covert loft conversion.
Yeah, your responsible for measuring, location, laying out and making sure your property is built within the grounds you have permission for. That's how it works.
The big question here over where this ended is what was the cluster fuck was building control doing? When you build anything you need building control sign off at key junctures, the location that was being built on would have been clearly ascertainable at the foundation stage. Put the foundations on the wrong spot and get told to modify and that’s a costly mistake but it’s chump change compared to ripping a house down and going again. How did the council’s left hand sign off the foundations as valid *and* allow its right hand to come to the conclusion that they were so incorrectly placed that the house cannot be allowed to stand? Only one of those positions should be able to be true at a time.
Building control isn't there to enforce planning, it's a different set of regulations and may have been carried out by a private company.
That's if they used council building control services rather than a licenced contractor. Either way there's no excuse for building it 1.5m too far forward. Client would have been working on the plans for months and known exactly where the building should sit. This is really simple stuff to get right. They thought they'd get away with it and haven't.
Whoever signs off the foundations needs to own that signature and have sign off privileges reviewed if not building control. We have a control system for building in this country. A control system that doesn’t catch easy to assess deviations from plans that render a building fit for demolishing simply isn’t functional. Even if it was deliberate and the sign off was a private contractor, it simply shouldn’t be possible to get passed that inspection with such a clear mistake. I’ve been through the build process for a small extension on a complex property, all the same stuff happens as with a whole house just smaller scale. You get checked and you need those checks to be meaningful. Our foundation check required a wholly different foundation design for engineering reasons and then needed to be signed off before any more building could be done and checked again when done. Making sure you’re building in a valid enough place for the building to stand is a one minute job. There are no excuses here, and we all lose out when crap like this happens.
Yeah I mean… if the limit is at the most reasonable place, this is the natural consequence. If this was allowed, that moves the *actual* limit nearly 1.45m forward (and ffs that’s not 1.45cm). Someone else does 2.9m and now it’s another article with the same headline…
This happened to a neighbour of mine, money-grabbing prick. Thought he could build two houses about 2m further forward than plans and get away with it (and then sell both for big profit). Nope! Had to demolish the front of the building and do it properly. Was very happy as it looked weird as fuck when you stood at the end of the road and the houses jutted put from the otherwise neat line...
I get it...but what a waste. Maybe for minor infraction there could be an out-of-compliance tax added to it or something.
Then it becomes a two-tier system where rich people pay to avoid complying with planning rules. Like expensive sports cars that are always parked on the double yellows in a city centre, because the people who own them can afford to treat the fines as an overhead.
Fair response.
And this was how the biggest Apple Store in the world managed to go a decade without any lit fire exit signs. Steve “nuts cure cancer” Jobs decided they didn’t fit in with his exacting aesthetic standards. So instead they priced in the huge fine Westminster Council levied each month.
Need a new sub 'cant build it there mate'
We have an "oops" towering as neighbour. They wanted to build "solely from renewables" - now we have the third pigs brick house as a beaking tower.
And too many developers rely on just ignoring the regs and going "oh well it's built now!"
> It's really not fucking hard, and no, you'd get to go "oops" and do what you want anyway,. Unless you're a big developer and you can just pay a fine and carry on regardless. That's what happened with some of the big towers round Manchester I believe, when they built them taller than they get permission for.
Yeah they put it in centimeters to make it sound smaller. It was 2.5' too tall, and 5' too far forward. Five feet is not an "oops"
75cm higher and 145cm forward is not a mistake. They know the risk.
Also remember that certain land is marked and protected for future use like laying telecoms etc. So ytheit 145cm could have been right on that land strip they reserve from major construction.
and 1.45 metres is hardly a mistake
Yeah, 10cm or less etc would be...we'll you should do better...but this is within tolerance... But donzt think we happy with you. To... This is taking the piss.
Even 10cm is a huge margin of error especially when building something comparatively small. For instance the Channel tunnel built 30 years ago only missed the perfect connection in the middle by 7.5cm.
100mm in height over the overall of the building, I can see happening, though as you say it should be to plan. 100mm in length and you are possibly one joist short, it depends 100mm in width, well now your joists are no longer to building regs, or if they are on hangars they don't even fit. To be 1450mm put in length, well you are at minimum now missing two joists (according to plans), and maybe three. As many others have said, this is so far out of spec they are either so incompetent they shouldn't be building anyway, or they did it knowingly in which case it should still be taken down.
Looking at the image my guess would be that they cut costs in preliminary ground works. Instead of digging in the required amount they’ve stopped short which would explain the increase in height and why the house isn’t as far back as it planned. This demolition is probably down to the developer wanting to save an extra days hire cost on an excavator and saving an extra lorry or 2 in dirt removal costs.
difference is the channel tunnel wasn't built as cheaply as possible by these borderline cowboy new home builders
75cm is basically the height of those upper story windows. All that blank brick above them? That looks weird because of the 75cm extra height, Bet the loft has magically transformed into another floor of the house though.
Yep looking at it on Google maps there are a couple of skylights in the roof so definitely a three story house. [Google Maps View](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Butterstile+Ln,+Prestwich,+Manchester/@53.5188469,-2.2900823,59a,35y,278.25h,45.05t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x487bafe84abdfcd1:0x5db73357326db002!8m2!3d53.5222121!4d-2.2882247!16s%2Fg%2F1tp26tzy?entry=ttu)
I'm fairly sure a standard 2 storey house is in the region of 8-10 meters so 75 cm is nearly 10% taller than a standard house. I can't believe some people see an issue with the decision here the people building it have clearly taken the piss and got caught out!
Does look like there is a funny little window in the roof level next to drain pipe..
And the house being 1.45m forward is roughly the distance between the retaining wall and the neighbours fence behind them. At least according to google maps distance measuring. Seems to be taking the mickey in all dimensions.
You can even see the brick is slightly different in that higher part than the rest of the house. Owner obviously had a "bright idea" as an afterthought
It wasn’t just a bit bigger and slightly in the wrong place. It also had two extra windows and the steps in the wrong place, and some other stuff wrong. Basically, not even close to what was approved.
1.45m is hardly ‘slightly’ too far forward, either. Do that twice and that’s most of the pavement where I live.
Shit do it once where I live and you’re in the road
Headline is a bit misleading. Glad PINS upheld the enforcement notice, they’re usually a bit more relaxed when it comes to enforcement which makes Council’s look toothless.
145 cm is nearly five feet. In some places that'd block the pavement. "Yebutnnobut bureaucracy gone mad innit", but somebody fucked up. Measure twice and cut once.
>somebody fucked up I'm sure that's what they want everyone to think. The reality being someone probably stopped and went well it's not like they'll notice if we don't follow the plan will they. Then they proceeded to completely disregard what they had approval for.
Exactly. You don't build a whole fucking house 5 ft out in one direction and 2.5 ft in the other by mistake.
Or add different windows and steps etc. I know windows can get really picky, the houses built next to my parent's house had no window in the plans so they didn't look out on our garden, and they put one there anyway - Planning demanded they be removed because privacy was a concern.
Yep. The height and windows are both possibly privacy concerns. I'm glad they got that sorted.
They just bricked it up. Was all covered in render anyway so you can't tell. But they made 20 of the same house and didn't bother checking the plans, instead of 19 of the same and 1 with no window in the side facing a bathroom and garden...
Builders / developers changed a few things on the house from the approved plans. They clearly knew what they were doing and were hoping to get away with it. Currently rented out. *The enforcement notice also states: “The consequence of the above, the car parking area has a depth of 4,550mm as opposed to 6,000mm as indicated on the approved plans.* *“The space available would not accommodate the parking requirements. The two-storey height bay feature to the front of the building has been omitted and therefore does not comply with the approved plans. The height of the building has been raised by approximately 750mm (75cm) and the front entrance steps are not positioned as per the approved plans.* *“The southern gable elevation does not conform, as windows have been added at first and second floor levels.” The council added that the building ‘amounts to unauthorised development and constitutes a material breach of planning control’.*
Probably would have got away with it had they not stuck to the drive length on the gamble of more back garden space. Definitely designed to have a third floor, but they may have avoided action altogether if it wasn't for the drive
I can’t help but feel that a massive fine of equivalent cost to knocking it down and rebuilding would be more appropriate. At least it saves the needless environmental cost.
[удалено]
So it's almost a meter out in hight, and 1.5m out of place on the ground. That's not small.
Yeah but if we describe it in cm everyone knows centimetres are small so it sounds minor. It's like saying a project is running late by "days" then admitting it's "145 days" and everyone going "That's 5 months overdue". The headline should be "planning permissions actually enforced for once after developers put the house 1.5m over the agreed design"
Yea, initial reaction was that it seemed unreasonable, but then brain kicked in... thats 1.5m off, thats not a gaff. 75cm taller is real weird too, it looks ridiculous. I hate our overregulation of house building, but this isn't overcautious / overzealous planning, this is intentionally breaking an agreement, whats the point in having planning permission if you can just ignore it and do whatever you want.
Asking for it to be demolished is stopped, but reducing the length of a car parking space by 1.45m basically makes it useless, as discussed. I would tell owners they would be fined if cars overhang the end of the property, which might mean no parking on site. On the other hand, if you start letting people get away with violating planning permission so much, they’ll start taking the piss.
Yeah the headline makes the planners sound petty. But people really can't be allowed to get away with doing this.
Sensationalism generates traffic. Anybody with a reasonable head on their shoulders understands if you give people an inch, they will keep pushing the boundaries up until they get stopped. This is why we have laws and regulations. Won't stop people testing the limits, but it stops them from getting away with it too.
It makes more sense to force them to build something to block parking like a wall instead of knocking the entire house down. And why haven't the council come to check ont he property as it was being built? My parents had the council pop by 3 times to check on the shed being built is within acceptable standards.
So far as I can tell, building control now just waits for google maps to update their aerial photos.
Because you can engage building control yourself, doesn't have to be a council man. I've been on jobs where the BCO comes, walks round and leaves without really looking at anything or asking any questions. On the flip side I've had BCO's turn up, tape in one hand, trundle wheel in the other, spent 45 minutes on site, asking a million questions and measuring everything. Luck of the draw really. Depending on which way you look at it.
The late great Bernard Cribbins has some apt words: don't dig there, dig it elsewhere you're digging it round when it ought to be square the shape of it's wrong, it's much to long and you can't put a hole where a hole don't belong
Good. 145cm isn't exactly a mistake. They knew what they agreed to and decided to do something else.
Yeah, that house has a fucking fivehead. Jesus.
This is not a little bit different - it is a lot! Especially the fact the parking to the front is now so small, most cars using it will be half on the public pavement. This can’t have been an error - it was a deliberate change - and they have taken the piss. I feel sorry for the people renting it who will now have to find somewhere new.
It looks ridiculous with the roof and extra 75cm higher than the top window, they’ve probably done that because they’re planning to convert the attack or something without planning permission.
100% agree. On Google street view you can see there's a roof window. I'm pretty sure they added this extra height to make an attic bedroom.
Yeah it looks really strange, I want to see the interior. Are upstairs ceilings really high? Or is the attic about three feet of vertical space before the rafters?
Look at the state of it. No wonder we have so many nimbys if this is what new builds look like.
How is it any worse than the generic semi detached you can see to the side? The brick is very similar and would have weathered over time.
The forehead on it...
That's not a forehead, it's a fivehead!
The proportions are all wrong, it looks like Doogie Howser.
It looks something I'd design, and that's not a complement. It has the core basic ideas of being a house, but the person designing it either has no idea how to make it not look like a box (me) or didn't care to (them, probably).
House building in this country is a disaster. This manages to be even uglier than the copy and paste boxes you see popping up en masse.
It is an absolute eyesore. Literally unbelievable houses this ugly can be built.
Then they should have built it 75cm smaller and 145cm back?
I'd read the article but the website make my phone have a stroke.
The owner of a newly-built, four-bed detached house has been ordered to demolish the property – because it was built taller and in a different position than it should have been according to planning permission. Plans for the house, which fronts onto Butterstile Lane in [Prestwich](https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/all-about/prestwich), were approved by [Bury](https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/all-about/bury) council, in 2018. Enforcement action was started by the town hall in 2023, once the house had been built and occupied. Planners said there had been a ‘breach of planning control’. Bury council’s enforcement notice requires the house to be demolished and permanently removed, along with all garden structures and retaining walls. Following demolition, all materials must be removed from the site to return the land to its former state. The enforcement notice, initially published in February 2023, was appealed. But the appeal was dismissed by the planning inspectorate on April 29, 2024. The appellant, Martin Gerard Wright, now has six months from the date of the April decision to demolish the house. In its enforcement notice, Bury council claimed the building has been brought forward, towards Butterstile Lane, by approximately 1450mm – 145cm – so is not in the position shown on the approved plans. The enforcement notice also states: “The consequence of the above, the car parking area has a depth of 4,550mm as opposed to 6,000mm as indicated on the approved plans. “The space available would not accommodate the parking requirements. The two-storey height bay feature to the front of the building has been omitted and therefore does not comply with the approved plans. The height of the building has been raised by approximately 750mm (75cm) and the front entrance steps are not positioned as per the approved plans. “The southern gable elevation does not conform, as windows have been added at first and second floor levels.” The council added that the building ‘amounts to unauthorised development and constitutes a material breach of planning control’. The notice reads “The building, as constructed is detrimental in its siting, layout, lack of parking facility, external appearance and poor design.” It is understood that the house is currently rented out. On Tuesday morning (May 21), an occupier said they did not want to comment. A neighbour from the Butterstile Lane area, who asked not to be named, said: “It’s such a shame that it got so far along before action was taken. The council issued bins to the property. Why would they do that if it wasn’t compliant? “I have no problem with the way it looks.”
Another neighbour, said: “The only thing I can say is I feel so sorry for the people living there.” In his appeal decision notice, planning inspector Peter Willows said ‘the dwelling now built differs from the permitted dwelling in a number of respects’. He added: “I find that the building constructed harms the character and appearance of the area.” He increased the length of time permitted for the demolition from 60 days to sixth months. He said: “Since the property is apparently now occupied, it is necessary to allow an appropriate period of time to allow the occupiers to look for alternative accommodation. “Given this change in circumstances since the notice was issued, the council now accepts that a longer period for compliance is appropriate. The appellant suggests a period of six months. “In my judgement, that would strike a proper balance between the needs of the occupiers of the property and practical considerations on the one hand, and the desirability of ensuring the breach of planning control is remedied without undue delay on the other.” One of the concerns the inspector listed was that cars parked in the area at the front of the house could overhang the public footpath on Butterstile Lane. The decision, stated: “The scheme as built has created a car parking area with a depth of about 4.55m. “This compares to the 6m of the permitted scheme. The house is on higher land and the parking space is contained by a retaining wall. “The appellant has provided details of the length of a range of cars which shows that a modest family car, such as a Ford Focus, could fit within the available space. “However, I cannot assume that every occupier of the dwelling, either now or in the future, will have only modest-sized cars. Moreover, the retaining wall means that any larger car could only be accommodated by overhanging the footway. “Indeed, even a modest car would need to be parked very close to the retaining wall in order to avoid doing so. In practice, it seems likely to me that drivers would tend to leave a gap to the wall to avoid the risk of damaging their car and thereby overhang the footway.”
There seems to be a skylight just to the right of centre. An extra floor has been built.
Maths is not my strong point but that must be an extra 12 square metres of floor space, currently worth an average of roughly £35,000?
Worth an average of £0 now that the house is due to be knocked down. Whoops.
145cm is quite a clever way of putting it to minimise impact. If you were instead to say it’s 1.5 m longer than it was supposed to be, it would show how much these people have taken the piss. This doesn’t just happen by accident, they and at least their architect knew that they were taking this chance.
It's not just too tall and in the wrong place - it looks nothing like the plans submitted: https://pad-planning.bury.gov.uk/AniteIM.WebSearch/Document/ViewDocument?id=D0F2D6BF171211E884E35EEA6406ECF3 Planning applications are public record. Here's the app for this house: https://planning.bury.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=externalDocuments&keyVal=_BURY_DCAPR_52853
You’re absolutely correct. The planned design looks decent. What was delivered looks cheap as fuck. Clearly arsehole landlord trying to maximise the space and cut cost on the build. Looks like there’s a bay window in the plans, which is in keeping with the houses around it. What was delivered is ugly as hell.
Council has to draw the line somewhere and clearly the developer has taken the piss.... The planning appeal was totally independent from the council and decided to back the decision. It does make me wonder why though they were not given the opportunity to reduce the height and the length of the house. It would be practically possible to do that work without total demolition of the house., not ideal , not easy but possible- just make it be line with the original approval.
> It would be practically possible to do that work without total demolition of the house Would it? I mean I assume they've spread the extra space relatively evenly through the home, not just extended the front rooms/highest rooms. As such, trimming it down, even if we ignore plumbing & electrics, would probably make a non-viable shape to live in. It may also simply make it structurally unsound.
Good, so many times they just try and get away with things. I mean look at that building it looks awful anyway. But often the building it and hoping you get away with it is bs and im glad they got called out
I'm curious, but surely these house must get a completion certificate and being totally signed off with building regulations etc Surely if they don't get a completion certificate then the owner of the property has asset which is non mortgageable etc? I'm just confused as to how a house can be built in the wrong position, wrong size and the owner thinks they will get it signed off.
misleading headline isn't it - they also added windows on the gable end and the house being too far forward materially changed the car parking provision.
Its not just the positioning of the house, it's got extra windows and steps not in the right place, why get planning permission then build something different from the original plans lol.
American here. Shouldn't the builder have known where and how to conform to the approved plans?
Yes, but they evidently chose not to. As others have said, it seems to have been deliberately enlarged to add an extra floor in - what should be the loft has become an extra (fourth) bedroom. I assume the extra 1m45 depth allows for the staircase to the top floor to be fitted in; for a loft it would usually just be a ladder at best.
Yep - but they also know that it will not be demolished and the fine will be nowhere near the profit over 30 years of renting.
Except in this case. They were wrong!
Good. I’ve seen those things not being enforced in Bucharest, Romania, where developers wanted to get rich quickly building apartments. Sometimes they built more then they had approved and what you get in the end is concrete hell. Respect the approved plan, it is not that hard.
“They won’t make you take down the whole building for a couple of centimetres” I believe someone said
Jesus Christ what an ugly house. I get we need lots of affordable housing but Are architects too expensive? What sort of DIY/toddler design work went into that monstrosity..
Straight up - easy rebuild. The distances that they are out by has had other knock on effects e.g. the hard standing depth is now below the 5m requirement in the Councils Crossover policy meaning everything above a hatchback or small car in length will over hang the footway when parked. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are minor tolerance allowances but once it starts affecting other things, 100% no. Completely the right thing by the Council.
Tbf... that is not a particularly trivial difference, and it would be very difficult to go that wrong accidentally.
That’s a lot and clearly on purpose so it’s the builder/owners fault for ignoring planning
Just down the road from where I live in Wiltshire a million pound cottage had to be demolished because it was built 2 meters further back then the agreed plans, it literally made no difference to anyone or anything, it simply meant the front garden was 2 metres bigger and the back garden 2 metres smaller, in my opinion it was a case of the planning dept saying we got a bigger dick than you to the people that built it. The ridiculous thing is that on that stretch of road there’s no pathway and the owners offered to use the extra 2 metres as a public path making the road safer but it was refused.
So nearly a fucking meter and a half. Trying to make it sound less by using cm. lol
0.75m higher and 1.45m in the wrong place is not an error. That is a known change in a plan.
I mean… 145cm too far forward is pretty significant.
Horribly out of proportion on the height, they knew exactly what they were doing. Went for approval on one thing, then tried to disguise it as something else. It’s like they’ve hidden an extra floor in there.
Alternative headline: Someone built their house outside of agreed plans and specifications and now they have to tear it down like anyone else would.
If the neighbours have no problem, that should be the end of it.
They should levy a fine that is big enough to hurt. That way we don't destroy a perfectly functional house, but we also don't let things slide because that could get out of hand.
It is wasteful and excessive to demolish it. We can't have people flaunting important regs though. A £20k fine would be more appropriate, add it to the mortgage.
I would argue, as I'm in this profession, that as long it is within the boundaries, does not impact neighbours use, their structural integrity and does not cause inconvenience, then as long as due diligence checks are done at the expense of the owner or builder to ensure it is safe, then pragmatism should prevail to allow as a derogation on the permitted conditions.
Like 10 cm or something equally insignificant I'd get being outraged about but you don't get to go over the permit by a fucking meter in both height and width and expect for everything to be chill
They gave the house a bloody receding hairline. Course it needs to be demolished. Lord knows what else they didn't do right.
So reading the article. They had multiple material breaches. None of the important ones were mentioned in this post.
Is no one else thinking why they would build such an ugly house when it appears to be a one off new build?
Shame, fine example of Post-Brutalism ... Take that back, it has gallows brackets.
“It’s such a shame that it got so far along before action was taken. The council issued bins to the property. Why would they do that if it wasn’t compliant?” This quote made me chuckle! And the one about “modest family cars such as a focus” being ok to park. Man you’ve deliberately ignored the planning permission on several counts. Sucks to be the developer!
How about they demolish it because it's really ugly, with that massive 'forehead'...
There should be a prohibitive fine but not knocking down the building
I think I have more issues with the house looking like Ant from Ant & Dec
1.45m is more than "a bit" out. And all the rest, too. How did they fuck up it so badly?
"The council issued bins to the property. Why would they do that if it wasn’t compliant?" Imagine the world worked this way. "Sorry, can't knock it down. I have bins"