Save Charlie's house

From the article: With a baby on the way Charlie felt he had no choice but to build his house without the approval of the planning authorities, convinced permission for his home would be refused.

Hence why our planning laws need re-visiting and reform; why our building regs need re-visiting and more importantly the public servants that currently enforce them, rather than work with them, need re-training.
I am intimidated by these things, and used to run a business that each week engaged with such things, so I can understand why so many would not want to go via the system that is aimed at stopping them, not working with them.

From the article: With a baby on the way Charlie felt he had no choice but to build his house without the approval of the planning authorities, convinced permission for his home would be refused.

I expect the travellers at Dale Farm felt they had no choice either.

From the article: With a baby on the way Bobby felt he had no choice but to take £10k without consent, convinced permission for his loan would be refused.

Stupid rules not allowing people to do as they please.

I might go into the garden later and build something. I say take it down. rules are rules. We live on the Carmarthenshire border and would love to build anything we want without permission.
My in-laws live down the road from there and they really need to protect the area from bad building decisions. If everyone down there with some land built what they wanted it would probably end up like the ‘shire’

akysurf – Member
all he has done is ignore the rules to suit his own needs. We could all do that
Seems to me that ‘THE RULES’ only apply when it suits, for example, major power stations (wind farm) have been erected after failing planning, just because the Secretary of State decided otherwise.

Love the house, he’s a pillock for going ahead knowing it would not pass planning retrospectively. Can’t have a free for all or the whole country would be full of poorly executed DIY houses – not everyone has the knowledge or skills to pull it off.

Or you could just follow two residents of this village who have built all manner of buildings and then applied retrospectively, both got it and some of the buildings are utter shite. Still, we could have another 110 homes going up soon as the planners decide upon the biggest Peak Park planning decision in its history.

FFsake folk, stop buying these lego houses, and how in gods name is that worth £115,000?, do you have any idea what that sort of money would buy you abroad?

I don’t give a toss. I don’t want to and never will live abroad. I’d rather live in England than any other country in the world. Seriously. I love to travel and see other places but I’m always happy to come home again.

FFsake folk, stop buying these lego houses, and how in gods name is that worth £115,000?, do you have any idea what that sort of money would buy you abroad?

Not even a garage in some parts, yeah crazy cheap prices in the UK.

akysurf – Member

Seems to me that ‘THE RULES’ only apply when it suits, for example, major power stations (wind farm) have been erected after failing planning, just because the Secretary of State decided otherwise.

The Secretary of State is part of the planning process, just an escalation of decision making. Thank goodness otherwise we’d never get anything done that has greater than local benefit i.e. power stations. Local Planners have no incentive to permit development for wider benefit.

If this was something a developer had slapped down without planning permission, there would be wailing and gnashing of teeth and a mob arriving to tear it down. It appears some numpty lived in a caravan for 4 years then built something he knew wouldn’t get permission for even if he asked, yet because it is a bit cute, we’ll let that one slide.

If you want to build a house, you have to get planning permission.
Just cos some people think it’s a bit cute doesn’t mean he can get away with it.
What a nightmare it would be to keep the inside clean, just imagine trying to dust all that curly, bent wood?

I’d suggest a compromise

Allow it to be kept as a work of art and visitor attraction – but don’t let him live in it!

What a lovely fab house I would have been delighted if it had been built with planning permission. But the same rules that now say it must come down are the ones that prevent a farmer or developer just randomly slotting a few Lego build soulless hitches into the landscape.

While on an individual level I hope he gets his retrospective permission, it would create a bit of a dangerous president.

His rationale stinks too , “wife up the duff so I had to break the law. ”

If that has to come down then the rules are wrong.

Rules too frequently are empowerment for arseholes

I find it sickening that large house builders get to eat up swathes of land, creating the eyesores of the future. As I search for a new home, I find an abundance of estate houses, because people don’t like living in them. They only moved there in the first place because they seemed cheap. These properties have inadequate parking, inadequate room sizes, no scope for improvement, are knocked up using the cheapest quickest methods and with run of the mill fittings.

These large bland developments are architectural vandalism. They destroy the character of the neighbourhoods in which they are built with no consideration for the impact on local amenity. You could be in Carlisle, Cardiff, Reading, or Chichester, these ugly sprawling box parks all look the same with their main access road and lots of mini roundabouts leading of down numerous pokey little rabbit warren cul de sacs.

Councils never used to intervene in local planning. Before then, our hamlets, villages, towns and cities evolved as they had done since man learned how to construct basic shelter. Since they intervened, councils have presided over hundreds of thousands of architectural carbuncles (many non-estate ones too). They even built a load of rubbish houses themselves and made a complete pigs ear of that exercise, wiping thousands off the value of adjacent homes.

Your local planning officer and the people who make the decisions on planning consent are not capable of making a decision on a development based on its architectural merit, they just tick boxes. They would not know a well designed house, sensitive to the vernacular, but designed to be practical for the way people live these days, if it landed on them from a great height!

As for this bloke Charlie, he’s a talented, but reckless fool. You cannot rail against the local authority and hope to get away with this sort of breach of the planning rules. If he ever did get permission for it to remain, I don’t think it would be saleable. Every prospective lender would run a mile at the non-standard, non-complaint construction.

What is needed is a complete overhaul of the planning system, so houses can be built, but large house builders are seriously disadvantaged. If land is available to individuals, they can build a single dwelling of high quality and still turn a decent margin as a reward for the risk and their hard work. The only blocker is the availability of development land. I say that small units of land should be put in the hands of local communities, for local individuals to benefit. This is local tradespeople, suppliers as well as owner occupiers.

Rules is rules. To build without planning permission it just daft and it seems he did so knowingly. Crazy. Good publicity for his obvious skills tho so mauve some goods will come his way in the end. Shouldn’t the council pursue him for costs given his intent to disregard the rules from the off? Tax payers money n all…

The man took a gamble and it didn’t pay off. Nae luck.

Why does the fact that it is (in some people’s opinion) an interesting or nice house make a difference?

If he ever did get permission for it to remain, I don’t think it would be saleable.

Living in a home instead of an investment sounds pretty good to me.

If land is available to individuals, they can build a single dwelling of high quality and still turn a decent margin as a reward for the risk and their hard work. The only blocker is the availability of development land. I say that small units of land should be put in the hands of local communities, for local individuals to benefit. This is local tradespeople, suppliers as well as owner occupiers.

That also sounds a great idea.

I remember years ago, I looked into buying a “doer upper” there were some grants available in the area, as the whole area was quite run down, but they were only available to investors who were going to rent out properties, not to someone trying to make a home for themselves.

The whole system is built to profit those who already have money. Sometimes when the rules are so clearly wrong, civil disobedience isn’t a bad thing. Maybe this guy will lose, but if enough people are vocal in support and rallying against a clearly corrupt system, maybe some things can change.

So he obviously had to start it at some point and was he challenged during the build at all… rather than waiting until the end ?

I think its a wonderful place and the guy wants commending for using what little resources he has to build his own home ,that is interesting both in vision and resources used,will provide a sustainable and enviromentally friendly home for his family.
He’s not trying to tax society ,I for one would much rather live somewhere like that than the sterile homes that get built now which are purely designed by accountants.

I’m pretty sure my thoughts dont fit in with the majority of society though.

I don’t give a toss. I don’t want to and never will live abroad. I’d rather live in England than any other country in the world. Seriously. I love to travel and see other places but I’m always happy to come home again.

This.

The Tesco store in Stockport totally ignored the planners and built this store 20% bigger than was agreed. Somehow they got away with it. Madness.

^ – The tesco store in castle douglas basically “bought” the planners/planning rights for their store as the local council eventually gave in to the size and ugly tin shed design due to the expense of fighting it, the only difference between tesco and charlies house above is that charlie does not have the funds to tie them up in the courts for years to come.

I say if you own the land then build whatever the **** you like, just like canada.

Anything is better than another godforsaken identikit synthetic housing estate built with pollutant chemical materials.

Unlucky.

But somafunk – if we had those rules in our tiny island, how would you feel if someone built a great big house overlooking yours, casting your garden into shade, devaluing it in the process? Unlike Canada, we aren’t blessed with masses of unused space so we have to look after everyone as fairly as is possible and that means rules.

That’s taking the argument against relaxing the antiquated planning laws to extremes though, what about allowing all builds unless they directly impinge upon anothers enjoyoment of their property with regard to natural light, outlook etc…etc. If no-one objects to it and it’s in a forest on or on your own land away from others then how is it causing a problem? – the guy just want a natural built and healthy house to bring his family up in, not to sell on at some future point to make a profit.

One of my mates up here used to live for years in a very extensive and sprawling tree house on his families land and the planners used to tie themselves in knots with regard to it, thankfully they eventually gave up and Tom now lives in his tipi’s, yurts and roundhouses he’s built. HERE

I’ve another mate who lives in a railway carriage connected to various wooden structures up in the Galloway hills on his own land with his own design of incredibly efficient hydro electric supply and solar water heating so totally off the grid so to speak, he’s got the right idea for sure. I’d much rather live like that in his stunning surroundings than stuck in some housing scheme, it’s not for everyone that’s for sure but for those of us who wish to live like that what right has the government or planners to say we cannot? – it’s our land, we can do whatever we like as long as it does not impinge on anyone else.

I guess some of us have different expectations/outlooks on life and how we should be allowed to live it than others on this forum which is all fair and well as we’re all different but to say a work of art such as charlies house should be torn down coz it’s against some arbitrary rules seems incredibly silly to me, especially as if charlie had money he could eventually force through retrospective planning.

They aren’t arbitrary rules. They are pretty much long-standing rules based on trying to be as fair to everyone as can be helped.

For some this means beautiful houses bring ripped down, for others it means ugly ones remaining.

It might suck but those are the rules.

If there was more room for interpretation and flexibility, all that would happen is that for every one house like the OP remaining, there would be many more really inappropriate ones being built.

I find it sickening that large house builders get to eat up swathes of land, creating the eyesores of the future

Taylor Wimpey. They bought a massive peice of green field land about half a mile from my house, there’s hardly any green sites left as it is, but that’s beside the point, from fields and trees to this:

How the eff can they get away with that?

The only people planners find they can still intimidate are individuals. Large developers can put in eyesore applications,re-apply again and again on refusal, appeal (with the threat of costs against the local authority) until they get what they want.

In Skipton, they’ve just been forced to accept a 110-home estate on green fields at the fringes of Skipton Moor against widespread public condemnation, and are only now discovering the shoddy way the development will be delivered.

The only powers they have left are disproportionate action against individuals.