Unauthorised engineering operations on a PD

hello,
Can anyone help? We have received a letter from the Council saying they have received a complaint about our driveway.
We dug out the front garden to put in a hard standing believing this was a PD, now 18months later following this complaint, the Council are saying we should have got PP as it is unauthorised engineering operation.
We are one of a handful of driveways installed on our road recently ours is the smallest, and lowest yet it appears we are the only one being complained about.
Can anybody help? the council are basically saying we have to put it back as it was and that if we applied for retrospective PP we probably wouldn’t get it. This complaint seems malicious and vindictive and aimed solely at us and not all the new drives - which are all much bigger and taller.
Can anyone give us something we can take to the Council that might help our case and stop them forcing us to fill it in and wasting thousands of pounds.
Thanks

How many square metres is it ?

I don’t know exactly I’m sorry, but it is approx 4m long, 2.5m wide and has a small wall approx 1m high at the back. We used a Council contractor to do the work and neither PP or engineering were ever mentioned. We also installed a dropped kerb and the council never mentioned it then either and that involved a visit by highways.

Have you done what the council allege? ie engineering operations - presumably significant excavating?

If your opinion is that you have not, tell them that.

Either way, one option is is to either ignore or refute the allegations and see what happens. The council will (should) only take enforcement action if the work is having significant impact on the street or is an eyesore.

If the council do enforce, then put your planning application in. If refused, appeal. If upheld then appeal to the court. All this will be at little cost to you but high cost to the council, so they may be minded not to pursue it.

Do you have a sympathetic councillor?

The other work done by the highways may indirectly assist you. Not by helping in planning terms, but by putting the council in disrepute by questioning their internal communications and procedures. Use this to apply pressure via a councillor or a complaint - although not a complaint about the planning letter or whether it needs permission, but on the council's procedures.

Thank you Woody. No we don’t believe it was significant excavating we believe it is a malicious neighbour who doesn’t like looking at it. How that one nasty person can have such a large personal (we have a small child and the drive allows us to get her in and out the car safely and close to our house) and financial affect on us is appalling. We will follow that advice and hope the Council see sense. But cannot find anything that says when it goes from PD hard standing (which has no exceptions except permeable surface) to engineering. Fingers crossed and thanks again.

If you have just dug out the top soil enough for a hardcore base and drive surface, then it's PD ( if the property has PD rights and they have not been removed) as long as you follow the drainage requirement.

If you have dug into banks and reduced levels and built retaining walls, then that potentially could be termed "engineering operations" and may require permission.

I presume you had permission for the dropped kerb?

Notch7 said:

I presume you had permission for the dropped kerb?

Click to expand...

PP only required if a classified road (ie a main road A, B or C).

The planners would have mentioned this in their letter if it applied

^woody^ said:

PP only required if a classified road (ie a main road A, B or C).

The planners would have mentioned this in their letter if it applied

Click to expand...

Ah ok.

Why couldnt the planners just say what the problem is, rather then talking in riddles.......

Is it to do with the hardstanding being above 5 sq m in area and not permeable?

Yes we got all the proper paperwork for the dropped kerb and it is a permeable surface we put gravel down as that was all we could afford at the time hoping to do the permeable brick at a later date.
We have put in a small wall approx 1m high at the back but again for PD it says as long as it’s not ‘significant’ embanking. We put a wall down the side too for our next door neighbours piece of mind but again not ‘significant’.
We did just remove soil. So frustrating and stressful. Our contractor (who is a Council contractor) never once mentioned engineering or PP.

calara said:

permeable surface we put gravel down

Click to expand...

that does seem to be PD.

Woody says a dropped kerb is PD so I suppose the question is whether your drop kerb meet a classified road, IE a B road or the like?

'You will not need planning permission if a new or replacement driveway of any size uses permeable (or porous) surfacing which allows water to drain through, such as gravel, permeable concrete block paving or porous asphalt, or if the rainwater is directed to a lawn or border to drain naturally.'

this seems to infer, access to a highway is an engineering operation:

Operational development
Operational development relates to physical alteration of land or buildings with a degree of permanence, including:

• building operations in, on or under land including (but not limited to) building demolition, rebuilding, structural alterations or additions to buildings and other operations normally undertaken by a person carrying on business as a builder (including the erection of a new building);
• engineering operations in, on or under land including (but not limited to) the formation, or laying out, of means of access to highways;
• mining operations in, on or under land including (but not limited to) the removal of any mineral-working deposit; and
• other operations in, on or under land including (but not limited to) the installation of fixed parasols with heaters.

http://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/...elopment-and-immunity-from-enforcement-action

and from another site:
https://www.planningresource.co.uk/article/1209004/operational-development-q---dcp-section-431
I am keen to know whether or not a vehicular access onto a classified road requires planning permission, particularly as this planning authority has three enforcement notices pending. Reported cases do not seem to provide a definitive answer.

This problem is a perennial one, and as you have found there is no consistency in interpretations of the law. The legislation on the subject is section 55(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 which states that "engineering operations" are development requiring planning permission, supplemented by the definition at section 336 where it is stated that "engineering operations" include "the formation or laying out of the means of access to highways". However, most accesses onto non-classified roads are permitted development by reason of Part 2 Class B of the General Permitted Development Order 1995 (GPDO) if formed in conjunction with another permitted development.

The basic problem lies in reconciling the fact that "the formation or layout out of means of access to highways" may often only involve removal of an existing wall, fence or hedge and/or the laying down of a minimal amount of surfacing, none of which would normally require planning permission in themselves. Some decisions such as the South Gloucestershire appeal case described in Casebook 8 February 2002 p19, where all that had physically happened was that a wall had been demolished, have tended to the view that if the works undertaken do not otherwise constitute development then the access created is not development either. Other cases, some examples of which are detailed in Development Control Practice at 4.3136, have taken the stricter view that although the works involved may not individually require permission, the total act of forming an access is still development by virtue of section 336. My view is that the original intention of planning legislators must have been to bring the formation of all accesses to classified roads within planning control because of the obvious highway safety implications. Therefore the latter and more stringent interpretation seems the sensible one to adopt.

I think your council is just stretching the rules a bit to get an application fee off you.
It doesn't sound like a significant engineering job; for example, you could remove the ground floor of your house full width across the
back and put in a big steel beam - which would be an 'engineering job' but would still be permitted development.
It's a matter of degree; personally I'd just ignore the letter.

We have seen this sort of approach before by petty and vindictive planning officers here. I can remember a thread where I think someone landscaped their back garden created a series of terraces to overcome the steep slope. Nothing that would have required planning permission but a neighbour complained and either they were a Councillor or they were friends with a Councillor so the planners used "engineering works" as the bogus reason to threaten enforcement.

The trouble is "engineering works" is so vague you can apply it to almost anything. Digging out an ornamental fish pond could be considered "engineering works".

So unless the OP really has dug out a huge subterranean thunderbird style parking space I would tell the Planners to Foxtrot Oscar. Wait for the threatened enforcement and take it to appeal.

Notch7 said:

Woody says a dropped kerb is PD

Click to expand...

He does not.

He says that a dropped kerb only needs planning permission if it's on a designated road.

But it will always need permission from the highways authority at the council, which is separate.