Imade the complaint about a year ago or so and the application was granted on the basis that some trees at the rear of the property had to remain for a minimum of 5 years. Any way the property was completed and once finished the trees were felled. I got a reply to my complaint today….

It appears that you made a complaint in respect of the removal of trees at this development which was initially dealt with by *Mr John Smith (who has since left the Council).

I have recently made further enquiries in order to resolve the matter and can report the following;

The conifers in question have all been properly removed by the occupier for both safety and crime prevention reasons. The council accept that this was necessary in the circumstances and as such do not consider it expedient to pursue the matter further.

Should you have any further queries regarding the matter please feel free to contact me (Mon – Wed only)

*name changed 😉

so I replied

Please send me a copy of the health and safety risk assessment that was made that came to the conclusion that the trees felled posed a danger. Also What crime ? please send me a list of all crimes in the past ten years that cutting down those trees would have prevented,.

yours sincerely

to which they replied

I am not in a position to provide the detail you ask for.

Enforcement action should always be commensurate with the breach of planning control to which it relates. It will normally be inappropriate to take formal enforcement action against a trivial or technical breach of control which causes no harm to amenity.

From my site visit and the reasons stated in my previous e-mail, along with circumstances / detail in respect of the use of the property, it is apparent to the council that albeit a technical breach of planning control has occurred we do not in this instance consider it expedient to pursue the matter.

Enforcement powers are discretionary and the council is not required to take action simply because a breach has been identified.

Not sure what to make of it ? Should I start shouting louder ?

What is the end result you want, sellotape the trees back together and re-plant them?

The property nuked from orbit obviously… the granted planning stipulated that if the trees were remove with the 5 year limit they should be replaced. I find it odd that the original planning decision thought the trees important enough to even mention in the granted permission and to stipulate terms and conditions for them to then shrug their shoulder with a hey ho.

Plant a row of fast-growing conifers on your side of the fence.

You may get more joy from chatting to your councillor (or whoever chairs the planning committee, if it went that way). I think the principle should be that planning conditions should be adhered to and enforced, but I’m guessing there isn’t much resource in local authorities to do that.

Seems to be common practice now to do whatever the hell you like on the basis that, in most cases, officers are too hard pressed to chase it up.

Councillor built the house?

Then enquire when the tree replacement order will be fulfilled?

Plant a row of fast-growing conifers on your side of the fence.

we have

Get them to replace the trees,that was in the original planning application so should be adhered too.

You could gat a FOI placed on the council for the reasons you have brought up, it would then be looked at officially and a decision rationale made.

Does depend on whether you want to wait, but once an FOI is in they have to respond.

We did one on the planning application for a number of houses being built on some fields near the farms, thankfully there was about another couple of hundred of us against the proposal and once no rationale was given by the council the group placed an FOI in and we ended up with plenty of information of the decision making process, all the minutes and plans.. The planning still went through, but the group were satisfied with the due diligence process that had taken place once they had read the documents.

You should definitely start legal action!

Then in ten years time we can see you on one of those channel 5 documentaries called ‘Neighbours at War!’ Or something similar, which detail planning disputes that are still unresolved after over a decade, but both parties have spent twice the value of their homes on legal fees 😃

In other words the applicants told a big fib to get round the legitimate objection and the council was complicit in the chicanery.

Even Trump and Putin wouldn’t get away with such deceit.  I’d send the details to your councillor and the local paper.

Or just get on with your own life, and not turn into a twisted old dobber.

Whats the meaningful difference between cutting the trees down now and cutting them down in five years time? Seems an odd condition to have in the first place

The councils response is pretty poor. A sneaky combination of we can’t be bothered plus, we don’t care.

As the OP states, what was the point in granting the permission on the basis that the trees be retained for 5 years if it isn’t enforced.

You could plant some japanese knotweed next to their house foundations……

in ten years time we can see you on one of those channel 5 documentaries called ‘Neighbours at War!’

My Dad’s ex-wife (2nd wife) was on one of those. Yeesh, what a vile woman. Sorry, yeah trees…

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“What is the end result you want, sellotape the trees back together and re-plant them?”

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The thing about planning permission is you generally can’t put things back how they were, but that doesn’t mean there’s no suitable action- basically there has to be a response otherwise all you have to do is make sure your planning breach can’t be repaired. Demolished a listed building? Well you can’t just put it back together…

Whats the meaningful difference between cutting the trees down now and cutting them down in five years time? Seems an odd condition to have in the first place

I guess to give anyone affected time to make suitable arrangement for when or if the trees are removed

Having had similar issues with a tree line at both my parents and my house with both being in breach of the plans. No action was taken or remedial action.

The response from kirklees was tough luck, Im just awaiting on the final approval of CASA at elland (and winning the lottery) before i go ahead and build something. bugger all point taking out planning application etc as i see it.

Personally I’d file this one under ‘life’s too short’. Council don’t seem interested, and even if they get interested can you really see the neigbour replacing the trees? Or is it more likely it’ll just drag on over the next few years causing you stress/annoyance? Neighbor has already shown they don’t care by cutting them down in the first place, so they’re unlikely to be bothered all that much if the council start sending them letters telling them to put ’em back.

Klunk I sympathise.

I am sick to death of the anti-social attitudes prevalent in our society. Everyone wants laws when it suits them but happily discard them when it doesn’t. We had a similar experience. Neighbours applied to build a **** off great swimming pool and went right ahead before permission granted. I raised this to be told that they would “write them a letter” but the work continued as the council has little real power to enforce.

They have no regard for their neighbours at all, unless I win The Voice and suddenly they’ll be round for cups of sugar and selfies.

Whats the meaningful difference between cutting the trees down now and cutting them down in five years time?

In five years his leylandii will be 40 foot high, so problem solved.

DavidB –  Can I just ask….. how does your neighbours having a big **** off swimming pool effect you?

Serious question

Are you envisaging Michael Barrymore style antics? Or maybe one of those frightful Gallagher brothers have moved in next door? 😀

Welcome to the current planning system. It’s clear that a lot of the conditions aren’t worth the paper they’re written on – clearly council’s aren’t going to enforce them and applicants know that, it’s just a silly paper exercise. Yet you then go to a planning enquiry, you’ll have planning applicants assure you that the issues you’re worried about will be protected by planning conditions and have the inspector lap it up and tell you everything will be fine in their report. I’m not sure if planning inspectors are deluded, just jumping through the hoops of the system they know is broken or fundamentally dishonest.

I had similar replies about things not being important enough for the council to do anything regarding far, far major breaches of planning conditions than that – I could have predicted exactly what response you’d get. It’s really not worth wasting any more of your time on. To be fair to the councils, the dice are heavily loaded against them – it costs them a lot of money to do anything and the results if it goes to court are a pretty derisory slap on the wrist (TBH the current system is ridiculously weighted towards applicants from a financial POV – they’re the ones making huge amounts of money, yet they get awarded costs against cash strapped councils who are just trying their best).

Demolished a listed building? Well you can’t just put it back together…

Ummmn yes you can

https://londonist.com/london/news/remember-that-kilburn-pub-which-was-wrongly-demolished-they-ve-started-rebuilding-it-brick-by-brick

Can I just ask….. how does your neighbours having a big **** off swimming pool effect you?

He hasn’t been invited one of their famous sexy parties.

Where the conifers any particular noteworthy variety or were they just the bog standard boring old common as muck type? It it for your own privacy? Or do you just like having trees? Just curious.

Councils are some of the most corrupt, useless, pathetic organisations. Most departments either can’t be bothered or don’t care.

You could shout louder but after an experience we had with building regs it’s just not worth it. Even if you are 100% in the right.

If you can be bothered OP, there is an ombudsman https://www.lgo.org.uk/make-a-complaint/fact-sheets/planning-and-building-control

Binners I had no objection to the pool. I objected to the work starting before consent given. Big difference as the subsequent planning conditions on how they should have worked the site were immaterial . So stick your pitchfork in your sheepdog last night.

My brother had his neighbor cut his line of trees down while he was on holiday!

He hired a 30ft inflatable snowman which was illuminated at night, which waved in the wind at his neighbours!

After six months (snowie was not up all the time, just randomly) the neighbor paid £3k to replace the treees and have snowie put down!

The bit I don’t get is that you have said that after 5 years the trees could be cut down.

Is that to give 5 years for your trees to grow ?

Taking more action is just waisting everyone’s time

OP – save your time, it’s a pointless use of your time and the councils. Sure you may technically be in the right but really – who gives a shit, the tress aren’t going to magically reappear.

You could gat a FOI placed on the council for the reasons you have brought up, it would then be looked at officially and a decision rationale made

Don’t really agree with this – sure for a major planning application such as you refer to it’s relevant but not to the situation the OP describes (not even sure they’d be obliged to respond under FOI rules in this situation). Even if they did respond this trivial matter would probably have either been decided by the person who responded to the OP or a quick chat with their boss to confirm, so there would be nothing to provide under an FOI request

So stick your pitchfork in your sheepdog last night.

Trying to guess the region-of-origin of this saying. Is it a Wurzels reference?

Much the same as my experience. The council either don’t have the money or can’t be bothered to carry out enforcement. Once the planning decision has been made they walk away.

Reminds me of Kent’s least favorite farmer, Hughie Batchelor

Complete disregard for the law, utter git, removed multiple ancient woodlands to increase his profit despite protection orders, persuaded the court once to delay his prison sentence “so he could bring in the harvest” –  as if he drove the combine himself!

Funnily enough his house was in a nice wooded dell.

So stick your pitchfork in your sheepdog last night.

Trying to guess the region-of-origin of this saying. Is it a Wurzels reference?

😉

Don’t really agree with this – sure for a major planning application such as you refer to it’s relevant but not to the situation the OP describes (not even sure they’d be obliged to respond under FOI rules in this situation). Even if they did respond this trivial matter would probably have either been decided by the person who responded to the OP or a quick chat with their boss to confirm, so there would be nothing to provide under an FOI request

You don’t have to agree, but it’s an option open to the OP should he wish to pursue it.

One of the main problems here is plenty of folk “don’t give a shit” sums up this Country in one fail swoop.

Is it a reference to the curious dog that had a night time incident? Or something.

Dealing with planning authorities these days is on the whole depressing.  Most of the in house expertise has either been made redundant or is spread so thinly they haven’t got the time to give reasoned advice.  Most of the time you have to get through so many layers of box tickers before you can talk to these people the advice becomes irrelevant.  More insidiously expert advice is now bought in form outside organisations which have their own agendas to pedal.

Just to add a bit of balance, we raised concerns about compliance with planning consent when a local restaurant built a massive flue right at the end of our garden, in breach of building regs and their permissions.

Council kept us updated about progress, and eventually enforced against the building owner meaning it was removed.

Of course, we’d moved by then, but the whole process was pretty impressive.

You don’t have to agree, but it’s an option open to the OP should he wish to pursue it.

I probably should have worded it better – I mean I don’t think it is an option. What recorded information are you expecting the council would disclose about their response to the OP? Do you think they convened a meeting and someone mentioned the planning abuser was a friend so lets just brush the OP off but this got minuted so everything will be exposed? My point was it’s likely nothing was recorded about the decision beyond the email correspondence the OP has already received so the council has nothing to produce in regards to a FOI request.