Predictable Planning Permission.

In cases where planning permission is refused for projected house-building projects, the developers just keep on applying. They know that they only have to win once to achieve their aim. They also know that the government will favour them, because of the need for more houses, fuelled by the population explosion and the increase of single parent families.

We now find ourselves the predictable loser in such a weighted contest. The owners of a site, which abuts our property to the north, have already got permission to knock down their house and build a block of twelve flats.

In addition to this, they have been trying for the last four years, to get permission to build a bungalow in a small patch of back garden, in close proximity to our house. This has been refused three times by the district council, as the application violated a number of criteria, not least of which was, density of build footprint compared to site size; and the likelihood of causing privacy intrusion to a number of existing properties.

Not content with these refusals, the developers took the matter to appeal and were given approval.

You have to wonder how such a system can be fair. At a local level, planning permission was withheld on three separate occasions, for well documented reasons, but at governmental level, the same application is just waved through after appeal.

No wonder so much disgust is felt about such a system. In the climate of distrust which prevails in our nation at present, one wonders if coffee money has made a comeback.