HOMEOWNERS who over-extend their properties ignoring planning regulations were today warned they could risk having their building work torn down.
Birmingham’s Planning Committee has pledged to get tough with architects, developers and land owners who flout regulations or build without permission after seeing a sharp rise in unauthorised extensions and alterations to properties. Officials have highlighted several major cases of action taken against rogue developers – from stopping building work in progress to prosecution at court and demolition during the last year and have pledged to take on even more cases in 2010.
Planning committee member Coun Adrian Delaney said: “Too often the council gets criticised for not taking enforcement action and not taking breaches of planning permission seriously.
“This sends out a powerful message that we do not tolerate abuses of planning conditions.”
Cases include; Nazia Parveen of Oxford Road, Moseley who had to remove a front canopy and was fined a total of £3,000 and ordered to pay £1,465 costs by Birmingham Magistrates.
An over large extension behind a house in Warwick Road, Acocks Green, had to be reduced after owner Maqsood Bi was found guilty of failing to comply with a building enforcement notice. She was also fined £500 and ordered to pay £500 costs.
A takeaway was shut down at 336 Witton Road, Aston because it did not have consent and Urban Village snooker hall at 580-582 Bristol Road was stopped from running a fun pub without permission.
While Isfaq Hussain was forced to reduce the size of a large outbuilding in the garden of Russell Road, in the Moseley conservation area, following complaints from neighbours
And Patrick McMurray of Clarence Road, Sutton Coldfield was fined £350 and ordered to pay £816 costs by magistrates after putting up unauthorised gates, pillars and walls. Earlier this year the committee wrote to every planning agent and architect in Birmingham warning them that such abuses must stop after they found themselves considering an increasing number of retrospective planning applications, those put in after the building was finished.
The issue hit the headlines in April when three suburban houses in Hobmoor Croft, Yardley, believed to be owned by members of a single family, were extended to palatial proportions, one even had a huge garden outhouse which resembled a Roman villa.
