Another viewpoint of that Grand Designs water mill up the side of a hill

Another side of the story than the one which that man told our Kevin about in the programme[/url]
Makes interesting reading don’t you think?

I wouldn’t have wanted to build my dream house anywhere near that pink monstrosity, and it is quite close. But I bet they’re miffed at losing the nice view too.

I’m fairly sure there arent any rules regarding blocking views and people being able to see into your property though?

I think there might be about building it 2.17 metres higher than you’ve got permission for.

They did get permission in the end did they not?

Who knows? That programme was hardly fair handed.

😐

GD is a very carefully presented program – we have been involved in a few.

They choose ‘interesting’ builds and people – it makes good television.

‘Interesting’ can be interpreted many ways 😉

That programme was hardly fair handed.

It’s supposed to be entertainment. That’s all.

I agree aP – as have a few GD programmes.

Many GD’s are also fairly inaccurate on many fronts, but lets not let that get in the way of good TV, eh?

Oh yes, I know two architects who’ve been GD’d.

The chap who built it was ‘interesting’ alright. If interesting means nutter.

Does anyone know whereabouts in the Chilterns this is? I ride there a lot, just wondered if it’s somewhere I know.

BURN THE WITCH

Nickc – It’s on stokenchurch hill. As you head up the hill towards the stokenchurch tower it’s on the right at the first left hand bend as the road begins to climb. I think it’s called aston rise or something similar.

..and trying to find the exact location was made more difficult cos if you google the geezer with planning permission it’s all about him having to rip down that gaudi-esque shopfront thing for which he had no planning either.

Just a quick thank you to the 350+ people from this site that have taken the trouble to look at our blog. We very much appreciate the support that many have shown us!

thanks again

The Neighbours 🙂

awww i saw this episode and the guy who built it really wound me up.. a water mill? get a grip, it’s an eyesore..

He did come across as a bit of a knob on the program, especially in the scene where he was staining the cladding orange with Uncle Kev telling him that he didn’t have permission to do it. It’s a shame that Kev didn’t point out to the viewers that he didn’t have permission to raise it up on 7ft steel stilts either (if the neighbour’s blog is to be believed).

I’d make him pull it down for the following reasons.

1) He deliberately chose to break the terms of his planning consent.
2) It sent out a message on national TV that you can do what you want and get away with it.
3) The “Revisted” program will be good if the site has been returned to a field.
4) He was an irritating knob.

I’m going to have a look see next time I’m round that way. Certainly looks awful for the neighbours.

I agree in a lot of ways with harry the spider then i look around at the other properties that you can see and it looks more of a dump than the ex council estate that i live on. Just put up some higher fencing some blinds at the window then the nutter can live in peace without having to see that ugly pink house the neighbour lives while eating his breakfast

Thank you showerman! Actually we happen to agree with you about the pink thing – the previous owners did that for some inexplicable reason – we intend to sort that out when we have some time. You might be interested to know that it turns out our house looks the way it does (apart from the pink obviously) because the council insisted it be built that way back in 1980!

Re the comment on “if the neighbours blog is to be believed” – you don’t need to believe us – the council(!) did a survey and the results are publicly available if you are interested enough! 🙂

Is he having to take it down then?

Really feel for you guys here.

Thanks Pauly – it’s not impossible but quite unlikely – trouble is once planning permission has been granted – no matter how corruptly – it in general can’t be taken away. But we’re doing as much as we can to try and make sure we are not left at a disadvantage through his and the council’s behaviour…

BURN THE WITCH

Who, Thatcher??!

BURN HER BURN HER BURN HER!!!!

(Scampers off to get petrol and matches)

Oh…

Sorry.

Just because the guy is a bit unusual and chose to build an unusual (for the UK) house there’s no need to call him a nutter. Most of the UK population would think the people who visit this website are nutters because we choose to ride bikes up hills and through mud.

Fair play to him for trying to do something different architecturally but having said that he should never have been allowed to build it 2 m higher than his permission.

OK, I believe the neighbour’s blog, but I also believed the program when it went out and they would appear to have been economical with the facts.

If he has over sized it by over 2 metres then it should come down. I rebuilt and extended the back our house and the planning department were all over me to ensure that I stuck to the plans. Our first set of plans were actually rejected because we crossed the neighbour’s 45° sight line by 300mm (hence the feature dog-leg in our extension). From the outset we were told that breach of agreed plans would result in the job being stopped so how did this clown get away with it?

Neighbourinthewoods, have you considered buying a couple of old shipping containers, piling them up on your side facing his back window and painting “Chris Ostwald is a ****” on them in 2.13m high letters?

Keep us updated Neighbours. This should not be allowed to happen.

I have to be a little careful here giving due respect to the ongoing investigation – and not wanting to bore you with the minutiae of planning detail that I have had to get into – but the following is all in the public domain so I can happily explain as far as I can:

The original planning officer made an on-site verbal agreement with him that she had no business to do – and did so without bothering to check whether what she was agreeing to was acceptable. When he had put his steel up, we noticed something wrong and complained (note we did not leave it until the house was up as both the programme and website imply). An enforcement investigation was started which led to a retrospective application which went to the planning committee (the one you saw on the programme). Unfortunately this same planning officer presented a false report to the committee and gave untruthful answers to committee members’ questions. You might have noticed everyone looking a bit uncomfortable at that meeting – this is because just before the bit you saw – in my five minutes, I had stood up and basically told the committee they were being lied to. They didn’t like that at all, and passed it unanimously.

Thats why we threatened a high court challenge (notice the programme didn’t explain that either).

The council were forced to “reconsider”…

fast forward to 18 months later – and despite our best efforts – it went back to committee (notice GD didn’t film that one) and – oh look – they passed it again – saying that it didn’t matter that it went against several of their planning policies – they thought it was fine and did no harm to us.

Now – when you consider the alternative – i.e. an episode of grand designs where the guy builds his house and then has to knock it down due to the council having ballsed it up – does it all start to fall into place?…

Incidentally – the planning officer referred to above no longer works for the council (but she very quickly got a job with a neighbouring council…)

I leave you to draw your own conclusions on that 🙂

This kind of shit really gets my goat.

corruption? in local government? surely not!

thats like suggesting that our prime minister wasn’t democratically elected and has a major responsibility for the failed state of the UK economy!

…oh hang on!

I saw this programme and thought the guy was a bit out of order, and apart from being built too high-its a eye-sore! Good luck NITW
Rudeboy dont upset the thatcher lovers, they get all defensive of their idol and start calling you names!
MrNutt we dont vote for the PM in this country, just for the government.
Thats enough politics for one night

colnagokid, don’t I know it, I had an all out dispute with my MP and their refusal to represent a disabled access group I was working with, their response was “you vote us in on the strength of our promises but we have no obligation to follow through on them”.

I was gobsmacked!

This kind of shit really gets my goat.

Pauly – as you can imagine – I’ve got through several herds of them already 🙂 No really any way anyone can help directly with the council (except perhaps by spreading the word!) but if anyone feels very strongly about the way the programme presented the situation, you might like to consider a complaint to Channel 4. If you feel that is appropriate – it would be great if you could also indicate this on the polls on our blog.

Thanks again for all your support 🙂

The neighbours

you vote us in on the strength of our promises but we have no obligation to follow through on them”.

I don’t suppose you recorded this conversation? Fortunately, I did record our conversations with the council – and some of it is – shall we say – very interesting stuff! (and is with the investigators).

MrNutt that is quite disgusting, my local MP is actually pretty good with local issues (very rare i would imagine!)
Im sure they wont be “counting on your vote” at the next election!

sure you’ve thought about it but isn’t this the sort of thing where a judicial review can be used – but possibly impractical because of expense?

sure you’ve thought about it but isn’t this the sort of thing where a judicial review can be used – but possibly impractical because of expense?

indeed – and bear in mind we threatened it first time around and SODC were forced to “reconsider”. If you are successful at JR – all that happens is the council are told to look a the decision again – and look what happened when we forced them to do that…

There are (with some exceptions) strict time limits for JR – and by the time we got to the 2nd planning committee meeting – bear in mind the money time and stress we had already expended. Thats what the Ombudsman is there for in part – so we’ll see what he has to say, although I think it will take some time for him to conclude his investigation.

@NeighboursInTheWoods

Well you obviously know more than we about the planning details of the house.

I don’t understand why you think it’s in the council’s interest to allow a house that doesn’t meet their planning criteria? Surely that would set a precedent in the area.

Richlips – it sets several extremely dangerous precedents and I think the council are going to have some problems with that in the future. I can’t at the moment go into the full details of their interests – but from what is available wholly in the public domain – and bearing in mind the side issue of the involvement of Grand designs – do you think they would really want the house to have to be knocked down as a result of their cockup?

I would imagine that they felt it better to deal with the immediate crisis and worry about the precedents later…

and bearing in mind the side issue of the involvement of Grand designs – do you think they would really want the house to have to be knocked down as a result of their cockup?

In my experience albeit not in your area. If they thought a mistake had been made, even on their part, they would rectify it ie. knock the house down. I would have thought that due to GD’s partaking, that they would have their senior bods give it the once over to make sure that they made the right decisions. Especially once it went to appeal.