Demolition Notice

[de_ja]

There is some brownfield land nearby the house, upon which there is a derelict 17th century Public House and for which a planning application had been refused in 2006 to erect self contained flats.

In the space of a few months this year, a boarding has been removed from the front of the public house, there had been a fire and the building (and land) has been sold. I noted just last week a demolition engineer entering the building.

Today I recieved a Demoltion Notice, Building Act 1980, it specified that the firm "name" has three months to demolish the property and must adhere to the requirements of the Building Act 1980.

Please; I would be grateful to learn, to what information would I be entitled. Googling the firm "name" has yielded no success, other than a potential foreign firm.

Would I be in my rights to ask the agency serving the Notice for the contact details of the firm for whom the demolition is to be conducted, would I be in my rights to ascertain what plans the firm have for the site or would I have to wait for notification by the Local Authority.

I have already contacted the Local Authority who have confirmed that there is no current planning application.

Thanks very much,

z

p.s. Is this normal practise, to spend money demolishing, before ensuring a successful planning application. This seems abit backwards to me!

p.p.s Is there some recourse available to be with regard to potential discomfort that might be caused by the demolition, I intend to ask the agency who served the Notice, who I could submit complaints to, if necessary.

I mean't ask also, is there no consultaion process regarding demolitions as there is with Planning Applications.

Thanks.

[George]

Land Registry? but you will have to pay for the information.

[Adrian]

de_ja gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Nothing on Companies House?

It'd stop the planning authority saying "No, you can't knock it down and build 437 ticky-tacky flats there. Rebuild the existing building."

[Man at B&Q]

Ask what you like, it's not a question of rights. Whether they have any obligation to tell you is another matter.

Not unless there's a planning application in the public domain.

A lot of LAs put planning applications on line these days.

There you are then.

Sounds like the demo notice was served due to the building being in an unsafe state or an eyesore.

Local environmental health officer should be able to advise.

MBQ

[Robin]

Who was the notice from? You do have "Freedom of Information" (FOI) rights. If you can find the relevant government agency, they should have a published policy on FOI and you could follow that to get what you're after.

The Local Authority will have an FOI policy as well.

[Dave Liquorice]

That would be my take on it as well. I'd guess the planning for the flats was refused because it would require the demolition of the 17thC pub, which probably wasn't listed but could have been considered worth preserving. After a couple of years neglect and a fire it's now not worth saving and has become dangerous so needs to be demolished. Thus making way for a planning application for a block of flats,which will probably be granted. This is a known MO for speculative developers.

Try digging about on Companies House for the directors of the company that currently own it and those of the previous owners. It might be interesting...

You probably won't be able to do anything about it though or block the planning application on what is a clear brown field site.

[Paul Matthews]

It may be the reason for demolition is that the building is unsafe, and they don't want to have to pay compensation when someone realises that.

[sm_jamieson]

Yes, and this maybe what you hinted at, but a derelict local pub near us was "accidentally" burnt down. The cops said it looked like a pro job, but of course nobody could prove it.

Simon.

[Mark]

You may find looking at your council's local plan if you intend to object to a planning application in the future. There may be policies that discourage building flats in that location, for example.

[Dave Liquorice]

A possibilty or you may find that the council has used all its house building planning permission quota.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Not uncommon. Private Eye used to have a column which highlighted one such incident in each issue (and may still do -- I haven't read it for a long time).

[Hugo Nebula]

On Thu, 5 Jun 2008 04:17:44 -0700 (PDT), a particular chimpanzee, de_ja randomly hit the keyboard and produced:

A person intending to demolish a building must give a Section 80 notice TO the Local Authority (usually Building Control). A copy of the notice must also be served on any adjoining building. The "agency" who issued the S80 notice is the company named on it.

Building Control then have up to six weeks to issue a Section 81 notice, giving the conditions relating to the demolition that the applicant must comply with, such as making sure that the site is hoarded, any adjoining buildings are made watertight, etc. You should receive a copy of this notice if you are an adjoining owner (ie, your building or land is physically attached to the demolition site) when it's issued to the applicant. Copies are also sent to the Health & Safety Exec so they can control the demolition, and to statutory undertakers.

The Local Authority cannot refuse to issue a Section 81 notice, and there isn't a consultation procedure as they are purely technical matters.

Planning Permission, on the other hand, IS open for debate. AFAIK, they have to apply for Permission to demolish. However this doesn't stop people knocking it down without permission. If they ever get fined, it's probably worth their while to get the principal application moving.

[Hugo Nebula]

On Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:56:36 +0100, a particular chimpanzee, Paul Matthews randomly hit the keyboard and produced:

If the bulding was so unsafe as to be in imminent danger of collapse requiring demolition, then that over-rides the Demolition Notice procedure.

[Andrew Gabriel]

So they can be on hand to come and scrape up squashed demolition workers?

[Bruce]

I have lost count of how many incidents of this type I have been aware of over the years.

During the previous property boom (1980s) I worked on scores of refurbishment and new build projects in London, many of which were designed to provide a brand new building behind an existing facade. It was amazing how many of the facades conveniently "fell down", despite having been carefully supported by substantial falsework.

It was also amazing how quickly an alternative design could be produced with a new frontage, resulting in very little delay to the project.

Such "collapses" were never investigated unless someone was injured or killed.

[Mark]

I've never heard of "quotas" with respect to planning permission, unless you mean that they can only process a certain number of applications per month.

IME planning committees/officers err on the side of granting applications made by large companies because they know the company can afford to appeal and/or resubmit applications and it costs the council less to cave in straight away.

OTOH applications made by individuals are a totally different case and they can have fun adding stupid restrictions and turn down a few for the hell of it.

[Dave Liquorice]

I may have the wrong end of the stick but ISTR that there is something in the "local plan", possibly orginating from central government, that restricts the number of new houses that can be built in a given period of time in a given area.

[Dan Smithers]

There was such a collapse in the centre of Bath about 20 years ago. The contractors were told to put it back. Or at least something that looked the same. I thought that they had hoped to put up something totally different, but I suspect that the cost of demolition and rebuilding with new materials might have been less than painstaking preservation.

[Mark]

Interesting. However this would not stop anyone applying for permission in the next quota period. The odds seem to be stacked very much towards the developer, they can appeal but objectors can't.

[Hugo Nebula]

On Fri, 06 Jun 2008 10:26:59 +0100 (BST), a particular chimpanzee, "Dave Liquorice" randomly hit the keyboard and produced:

I thought it was the other way round, in that LAs were under pressure from Central Gov't to 'provide' a minimum number of new dwellings. Certainly that was the case a few years ago when the Government would 'predict' how many new houses were needed in certain parts of the country, then this was divvied up amongst local councils.