Scaffolding Query

[Sam777]

Hi I was looking for some advice for a friend. My mates neighbour had a large section of scaffolding erected at the side of his house - he had had this erected and in the same location for over 15 years. It is over two stories tall (large Victorian property), hugely unsightly, very rusty and pretty unsafe looking. He is wanting to sell pretty soon and this is definately an eyesore that will not help a sale.

He has spoken to the planners and building control but they are saying it is nothing to do with them and suggested his only route is health and safety.

Does anyone know of any other routes or have any advice. By the way I live in NI if it has any bearing on regulatory powers etc....

Thanks in advance.

 

[^woody^]

Scaffolding is "operational development" under the planning legislation and so is something for which planning permission may be required. If there is planning permission for a new permanent structure (an extension say) it is usually assumed that scaffolding can be erected for building it without specific permission.

Otherwise permission would be required if the scaffolding was to be in place for more than 28 days without associated building work ie where the scaffolding is not ancillary to a new building with planning approval.

So it is definitely a planning issue.

It's also arguably a potentially dangerous structure, for which building control could investigate

 

[big-all]

another point to note
if you take any action off an official sort that could be seen as a dispute so you must mention this in home buyers questionair otherwise you are legally responsible for your omissions

in other words what i am saying take no action situation as seen so unless they ask about the scaffold you say nothing
if you are in dispute the fact need to be disclosed
not an easy situation but i thought it worth a mention

 

[^woody^]

It would be the council who take action, there would be no dispute to declare

 

[big-all]

It would be the council who take action, there would be no dispute to declare

your the expert