Curtains for Briony

If you want an empty flat, see a Derek

Curmudgeonly councillor hastens the Townsend

In September 2007, Dacorum Borough Council's Development Control Committee granted my next-door neighbour planning consent to demolish his property and build a terrace of three, three-storey houses approximately 1.5 metres (less than four feet) from the wall of my home. If built, the development would be significantly higher than the two-storey house in which I live. It would result in my back garden being overlooked, my light being blocked and cars parking within ten feet of my front bedroom window. The front garden would be entirely lost to hard standing. In these days of mass car ownership, six car parking spaces are unlikely to satisfy the demand generated by three three-bedroom houses. The existing single dwelling has regularly had between four and six cars parked in its drive in the recent past.

As you may be aware, the government has decreed that the south east of England must be crammed with expensive new houses, even though the region has insufficient water during drier summers to supply the houses it already has. Where possible, new building is required to be on "Brownfield sites", most of which are actually gardens. If a council refuses planning permission, the developer can appeal. If the appeal court judge rules that the council has not acted in accordance with government policy, he will overturn the decision, allow the development and order the council to pay the legal costs of both sides with Council Tax payers' money. If, however, planning permission is wrongly granted, neighbours have no right of appeal, unless they can afford a Judicial Review costing upwards of Ł40,000. As is usual in local government, the system is designed to serve the rich, not the just.

So was Dacorum Borough Council honest about the reasons why it could not refuse permission for this development? Of course not. Honesty is not the way of Dacorum Borough Council.

Planning Officer Jackie Ambrose provided the Development Control Committee with a report recommending that planning permission for the development be granted. This made no mention of Government Planning Policy Guidance. It looked more like the output of a property developers' agent than that of a professional planning officer paid by the taxpayer to serve the public. It was also a sloppy piece of work containing a succession of factual errors.

The officer's report stated that "this scheme will reintroduce the public footpath in front of the site" and "would create a continuous footpath down this side" of the street. There has never been a public footpath in front of the site during the forty years that I have lived next door. This scheme will not create a footway along this side the road, except for the few yards along the front of the site.

The report contained a ludicrous claim that parking within ten feet of my front bedroom window would cause no more noise than parking in the street, which is at least twenty feet away.

The report described "a high trimmed privet hedge" at the front boundary of the site. The privet was taken out more than fifteen years ago and replaced by Cupressus leylandii. Did Mrs. Ambrose take the trouble to visit the site, or did Mrs. Ambrose rely upon outdated information collected at the time of a previous planning application, when the street contained four fewer dwellings and no nursery school was using the street for access?

The report also described a block of flats at the foot of the road as "nine elderly persons' flats". The flats are not elderly persons' dwellings. Most of the residents are far from elderly, and would be entitled to feel insulted by this description. Sadly, the neighbours are well used to being insulted by the incompetent and dishonest officers of Dacorum Borough Council, and by the cowardly councillors who insist that the officers are always right.

Another neighbour and I spoke to the Development Control Committee regarding the likely effects of the development upon residents and the erroneous nature of Mrs. Ambrose's report. We would have been better off speaking to a brick wall. A brick wall is straighter than Dacorum Borough Council.

The committee was then addressed by Planning Officer Briony Curtain, who refused to accept correction of a single error in the report. She insisted on repeating that the hedge was "Privet". Speaking in the fluent patter of the shameless liar, she also added the ridiculous claim that there would be less overlooking of my back garden from the rear windows of the new buildings than from those of the existing property, even though the new windows would be both higher and closer to the boundary than those existing. The limitations of my computer system prevent me from including a diagram, but if readers draw a rough sketch of their own they will see that higher windows closer to the boundary make a greater degree of overlooking inevitable.

It will be curtains for Briony eventually. Those who sell their soul to the devil in return for the material pleasures of life generally find that the devil cheats them.

The meeting was also attended by Jane Custance, the so-called "Development Control Manager". Whatever she contributes to the Council Tax payer in return for her generous salary, Mrs. Cowardly Custance does not manage to control development.

There followed mimimal discussion among the councillors, led by the appropriately-named Derek Townsend. Councillor Townsend represents a seat in the neighbouring town of Tring, and has previously demonstrated that he has no interest in my home town of Berkhamsted. This spineless curmudgeon insisted on referring to "The hedge - the Privet". As we know, local government officers are never wrong.

Councillor Townsend moved the officer's recommendation, which was seconded by Councillor Restall. Only Councillor Mike Edwards, a man among officers' puppets, voted against granting planning permission.

A condition of planning consent is that the developer must submit another application for "Reserved matters", dealing with such details as drainage. At the time of writing, December 2008, no such application has yet been published.

Around the turn of the year, a board from estate agents Cole Flatt and Partners was erected, stating that the house had been sold. The owner admitted that this was not true. The board was duly changed to read "For sale". A neighbour posing as a buyer went to see the owner, who said that he wanted Ł700,000 for the property with planning permission.

London estate agent Roy Brooks was notoriously honest about the properties he sold. For example, "Grotty flat in fashionable Chelsea. Bathroom overflow makes a pretty waterfall". If Mr. Brooks were selling the property in question, his advertisement might read something like this:

"Shabby, over-priced detached house in neglected garden with mutilated trees. Access via third world road leading to congested and dangerous high street. Drunken yobs entertain on Friday and Saturday nights. Extortionate council tax levied by dishonest and incompetent council. Impossible neighbours".

The house was withdrawn from sale in September 2008, by which time Cole and Flatt were no longer partners. Unsightly hoardings were erected and it was demolished the same month over a two week period.

In December 2008 a new sewer was installed across the site in inconveniently wet conditions. Each time a trench was dug it filled with water and had to be pumped out. The noise and fumes from the pump were unpleasant for the neighbours. On the 17th. December 2008 the pump was left running all night, keeping the neighbours awake all night. This matter is currently with Dacorum Borough Council's Environmental Health Department, and will be vigorously pursued. Vehicles leaving the site left mud on the newly-resurfaced road. The former garden now resembles a battlefield.

The "Credit crunch", recession and falling local house prices may yet grant the neighbours a stay of execution. "For sale" signs are proliferating in Berkhamsted. A flat nearby has been without tenants for several months. Seventeen retirement flats in a new block have been on sale for more than two years; when I last heard, three had been sold. The price of the remainder was recently reduced from Ł250,000 to Ł189,000.

Nearby, at Stag Lane, an estate of similarly unsightly, high-density rabbit-hutches with poky rooms is under construction, and these will soon be on the market, too.

Meanwhile, the Chief Executive of Barclays bank is predicting that house prices will fall by another 30%, and Legal & General Investment Management predicts that they will not recover to their 2007 peak for at least ten years. The Head of the International Monetary Fund has described the current financial crisis as the worst the world has faced for seventy years.

If the developer goes bankrupt, he can expect no sympathy from me.

I forget which letting agency used the line, "If you want an empty flat, see a Derek". I wonder if Councillor Townsend remembers?

Return to contents list.