A man has blasted his local council after enduring a tiring battle to build a garage at his home. Chris Young, 71, of Longdale Lane, Ravenshead, applied to build a garage for his car and bike in 2021, but it turned into a saga which left him 'upset' and questioning the competency of Gedling Borough Council's planning department.
His detached garage plan was turned down by the council on October 18 last year as they said the size, scale and siting made it "significantly detrimental", despite several properties nearby having similar structures. But after Mr Young appealed, this decision was overturned by the Planning Inspectorate on July 20.
The Planning Inspectorate concluded it would be in keeping with the area, saying: "Detached garage buildings are a prominent and regular feature of the street scene and wider area." Mr Young also filed an application for costs, claiming Gedling Borough Council had failed to decide his application in a timely manner, to produce evidence for the refusal, had not decided similar cases in a consistent manner; and did not engage positively with the applicant.
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Inspectors found the council had acted 'unreasonably', concluding Mr Young was not given an opportunity to discuss and resolve issues. They found the decision was inconsistent with previous cases, and the council did not determine the application within time limits.
After winning his appeal and application for costs, Mr Young criticised the council for "wasting a chunk of his life". "It's wasted a chunk of my life I would have rather not wasted. It was for the car, but also I move with some difficulty now and the one thing that keeps me going is biking," Mr Young said.
"I bought a place without a garage but we did look into it before and 14 houses on the street we live on had been given permission for structures at the front - so we felt confident that we'd be OK. You're responsible for your own mistakes and that was one of ours [not buying a home with a garage], but I am disappointed with the competence and attitude of the council.
"It's well established in planning law that the character of the area is that which is established, so it's on that reason we bought the house but now we've wasted a lot of time with these people. Next door to us has a structure at the front, and directly opposite has a really big garage at the front - our one will be very low profile and behind a lot of greenery, it will be virtually invisible.
"So we just thought it was a certainty but we were warned by our architect that Gedling were inconsistent so we were a bit on edge about it. We have no sour grapes because we have won now but if you have done something wrong repeatedly it is fair to say you're not good at what you're doing.
"I don't have any problems with the officers who came out to do the work, its the leader and direction of the department I'm concerned about. There's a little point in here about democracy, which is that when there's something controversial in planning generally speaking the council take it to a planning meeting for the councillors to make a decision. What I understand from our local councillor, Gedling refused to do this, which, from my research, stands alone in that respect.
"If your elected officials have no power in the planning process, that seems to me to have a bit of tilt of what local democracy should be. Ordinarily if a councillor says they want to call something into planning it is call in, but at Gedling the head of planning refused to do that."
Following the successful appeal Mr Young filed an official complaint against the council, but said he would not seek to receive the costs awarded to him - as this would mean more public money being lost. In response to Mr Young's complaint, a council representative explained a council panel had decided not to take the application to a planning committee after considering a local councillor's request, opting to allow a planning officer to make the decision.
"I sent an appeal in, which costs public money, because it's free to the applicant. They had to spend money responding to it, and, in my case, we went for costs because of the nature of their behaviour, which we won," Mr Young added.
"We're not going to charge them anything because I don't want any more money to come out of the public purse. There's an opportunity missed to get money back but it just didn't seem right to waste more money because it's not the taxpayer [who] has done this.
"We were very relieved to see we had won in the appeal but to be honest now we're finding it difficult to find a builder. I didn't even expect this hassle, and, to be honest, it's upset me.
"They were very bombastic and high-handed and refused to talk or discuss things with us. I felt I was under some power I couldn't challenge. After we won a couple of weeks ago I sent in an official complaint, I decided it would be wrong to ignore how poorly the council have behaved."
In the letter responding to Mr Young's complaint, Mike Avery, head of development and place at Gedling Borough Council, said communication had fallen below standards due to an "influx of householder planning applications during the pandemic, particularly in the Ravenshead area". He also apologised for the lack of feedback and for the delayed decision.
A Gedling Borough Council spokesperson said: “Our planning team handle over 700 planning applications a year and each application is processed on its individual merit. All applications have a degree of subjectivity to them. We followed the correct process and procedures and, on this occasion, the Planning Inspectorate did not agree with our decision to refuse, and we accept their decision.
"It is important that we take a strong approach to approving planning applications, to ensure that they meet the needs of all of our residents. Improving the look and feel of the borough is a council priority and we have recently launched a design code consultation, which will help shape and improve future builds, from garages to multi-million-pound housing developments.”
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