Our dear old friend, Richard “The Builder” Fear, city council property boss and congenital idiot, continues to impress. Fear The Builder, you may recall, extended his period property in leafy Knowle with an “upscale dormer window” or, as a planning inspector later described it, a “strident and bulky structure creating an awkward sense of ALIEN OTHERNESS”.
The Planning Inspector became involved in an appeal early last year after this senior city council property expert FORGOT to get planning permission for his new structure. He then, unfortunately, FAILED, in 2016, to get retrospective permission for his hideous mess that broke all known planning regulations for a dormer window and had to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate.
Decisively losing the appeal, Fear then attempted to try and get retrospective planning permission all over again last summer by claiming a PAINT JOB and a bit of FAKE ROOF added to his unlawful carbuncle would solve all the problems.
Alas, not according to a planning committee of councillors who sent Fear packing a second time. Councillor Olly “Mediocre” Mead telling him, “You can put me in a TUTU and I’d no more resemble a BALLERINA than that resembles something that is appropriate for the area”!
Now, nine months later, and Fear has developed a new two-pronged strategy to save his expensive extension from demolition. We learn that, for the THIRD TIME, he is applying for retrospective planning permission while also appealing to the Planning Inspectorate for the refusal of his second effort to obtain retrospective planning permission.
Neighbours and locals assure us that Fear’s latest efforts are ludicrous. “The new plans look EXACTLY THE SAME as the ones refused planning permission last year,” they say, “what’s changed”?
Meanwhile, will an appeal to the Planning Inspectorate be any more help to Fear than last time around? Informed opinion suggests not.
Earlier this year the government indicated that it would change permitted development rules to “make it easier” for houseowners to build additional storeys.
Perhaps he’s stringing the process along in the hope that this change will come into law before he’s forced to remove his carbuncle.
How can anybody build a loft extension without bringing the foundations up to current building standards? Knowle is particularly unsuitable for such vandalism. These houses Have no solid foundations and were built on destructive gradients during a period of greedy urbanisation of farmland outside the city boundary.
These properties share boundary walls with adjacent properties and the added weight will bring down neighbouring properties with your own. Richard Fear should be trying to strengthen planning regulations not defying them. Anybody with any technical knowledge will be able to see the beginning of the collapse of the properties sporting loft conversions, with their insanely over specified timbers and more importantly, steels. This is particularly noticeable on the end of a terrace. Houses for living in not profit.