It is currently 28 Mar 2024, 18:00

Planning - this one takes the biscuit

Hang up your Chisels and Plane blades and take a load off with a recently turned goblet of your favourite poison, in the lounge of our Gentlemen's (and ladies) Club.

Planning - this one takes the biscuit

Postby RogerS » 03 Feb 2016, 19:32

A few years back, I was having a cup of tea with the local Firearms bloke and he told me this story from his travails.

He'd been down to a house on the Worcestershire/Gloucestershire borders to check out the location and security of the firearms storage cabinet for an applicant. When he got there he discovered that although the front door of the property was inside Worcestershire and thus within his remit, the house actually straddled the border and where the firearms cabinet was to be located was in Gloucestershire and outside his remit. The owner was quite understanding but then asked Mike if, since he was there, he'd just take a quick look to make sure the cabinet in the basement was OK. Mike agreed.

I'll let Mike tell the story.

'When I went down into the basement, two things surprised me. The first was that the basement seemed a bit Tardis-like and larger than the footprint of the house above and second was why was there that massive 15ft x 15ft solid block wall-to-ceiling in the middle of the floor. I asked the owner about these and he told me that he bought the house as a distressed sale and although it already had planning permission he wanted to make a few variations. However, when the Planning Officer arrived and went down into the basement, he realised that the previous owner who had had the original planning application granted had pulled a flanker and made the basement much larger than on the plans.

I said to the owner that surely it didn't make any difference as it was below ground but the owner replied that the Planning Officer was adamant that the basement be reduced in floor area back to the permitted amount. Hence the large wall-to-ceiling block in the middle of the room.'

At this point I said to Mike that why hadn't the owner knocked the walls down once he'd got the planning variation agreed. Mike replied that he'd had the same idea and had asked the owner the same question.

The reply was that the Planning Officer had also had the same question and specified that the 15 ft x 15 ft block was to be filled with concrete!
If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.
User avatar
RogerS
Petrified Pine
 
Posts: 13290
Joined: 21 Jul 2014, 21:07
Location: Nearly finished. OK OK...call me Pinocchio.
Name:

Return to The Woodmangler's Retreat

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Bing [Bot], Lurker and 15 guests