Self-build 'sustainable home' in Council project falls foul of planning consent
A planning authority in Northumberland has been recommended to pay a couple nearly £6,000 in compensation after it started enforcement action against a couple who had constructed a self-build 'timber/log kit' home.
Castle Morpeth Borough Council in unreasonably started enforcement action against a couple who had constructed a self-built ‘timber/log kit’ home finds Local Government Ombudsman, Anne Seex. In her report of the 22 April 2008, she reports that she found no evidence that the Council ever made a properly-considered decision that the conditions that it was seeking to enforce were actually required. It also failed to monitor conditions on the site, and was therefore unable to show that it had treated each purchaser equitably.
A couple (called ‘Mr and Mrs C’ in the report) bought a building plot as part of a project sponsored by the Council to promote timber/log self-build homes with high standards of environmental sustainability. The Council unreasonably refused to allow them to use materials and methods that would have achieved all the required sustainability standards.
The Council said that it refused because what the Cs wanted to build did not meet its specification of a timber/log house. There is no evidence that the Council ever considered or approved a definition or specification for what it meant by a timber/log home. It took no steps to ensure that all the properties were built to the sustainability standards that it had set.
The Ombudsman says: 'It's reliance on what it calls the ‘specification’ does not stand up to scrutiny. Its replies to me show that it has been prepared to accept a property built from a kit supplied by [a particular company] but which can not reasonably be described as a ‘timber log kit home’. The Council seems to be incapable of distinguishing its sustainability specification from the identity of the supplier.'
The Ombudsman finds maladministration causing injustice and recommends that the Council should:
• pay Mr and Mrs C £5,440 for the additional costs their incurred as a result of the requirements that the Council unreasonably imposed; and
• pay Mr and Mrs C £500 in recognition of their distress, time and trouble.
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