Committees are bodies which take hours to make minutes, and our parish Council is no exception.
Last meeting we all looked at plans to turn a grotty little cottage into a comfortable four bedroomed house, which the plans succeeded in doing without damaging the general appearance of the cottage (one of a pair) from the front so we gave our whole hearted approval. The neighbours were also happy - the other half of the pair is itself still undergoing considerable alterations to make it better suited to the needs of the couple and their four boys, the neighbour on the other side is the architect for the extended house, and the neighbour behind is on land so elevated above the pair of cottages that only their cellar (if they had one) would be affected. In short the village was perfectly happy that extending the cottage in this way would be an improvement welcomed by all.
The District Council thinks otherwise, and has insisted on reducing the house from four to three bedrooms and from two to one bathroom. The study and the porch have also had to go, to the detriment of the whole design.
Why?
Just across the road they allowed seven four and five bedroom, three bathroom houses to be built in opposition to the wishes of the village, the next two houses in the road next to the cottage are equally large and the next cottage beyond the two new ones has been similarly extended, so they can't say that the alterations are out of keeping with the village. Nor can the changes to the plan bring it down into the affordable housing bracket - it will just be a less desirable expensive house when it is finished. The village could probably do with some more social housing or a couple of pairs of cheap semis which local youngsters can afford to buy, but that is a different issue which has nothing to do with alterations to this particular cottage.
