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A council has triumphed in a dispute with a homeowner over garden decking, using photos from estate agent websites as evidence. Belinda Klugah Cavill, the homeowner, had argued that the raised platform in her garden at Woolpitch Wood, Bayfield, Chepstow, was already there when she bought the property in 2023.
She maintained it had been installed by the previous owner around 2004 or 2005. If correct, this would have made the decking exempt from enforcement action due to its age, as it would have been in place well beyond the decade-long threshold.
Despite being higher than 30cm above the ground – which would have originally required planning permission – it could have remained as is. However, officials at Monmouthshire County Council discovered photos on estate agents’ websites, including Rightmove, showing differences in the decking between when the property was advertised in June 2023 and when it was listed in February 2013.
The council began investigating the decking after receiving a tip-off in 2023 from a member of the public that it had been installed two years earlier in May 2021, without the necessary planning permission. This led to an enforcement notice being issued in March this year, requiring Ms Cavill to remove parts of the decking and related material within six months.
When Ms Cavill contested the enforcement notice, the council admitted it had lost track of the original tip-off that sparked the investigation, although it did provide photographs found during a search of property websites, reports Wales Online.
The homeowner took the case to Welsh Government body, Planning and Environment Decisions Wales (PEDW). But independent planning inspector Richard Jenkins, who examined the appeal on behalf of PEDW, concluded that evidence gathered from the property websites backed the council’s stance.
He wrote in his official report: “The LPA (local planning authority) has provided a screenshot from an online platform that specialises in property sales, rents and values that appears to confirm that the decking was substantially complete in June, 2023. This is then contrasted with a screenshot from a similar online platform that appears to illustrate a materially different decked area in 2013.”
Aerial photographs, which “also appears to demonstrate a material difference in the extent of the decked area between the years 2020 and 2023” were also supplied.
Mr Jenkins said: “I am satisfied that the evidence is sufficiently clear to confirm the council’s position that the decking has materially changed since the original decked area was constructed. The decking subject of the appeal has not, therefore, been in situ for a period that exceeds 20 years as alleged by the appellant.”
He accepted the evidence “falls short of categorically confirming” the work took place in May, 2021, but said it doesn’t contradict the council’s case and there was nothing that would lead him to conclude it was “substantially complete prior to the date of immunity”.
The report noted the burden of proof lay with those challenging a decision to issue an enforcement notice and there was no substantial evidence “to discredit the council’s critical argument” that whilst there may have been a decked area before May, 2021, the new decking represented a “fresh breach of planning control”.
Mr Jenkins rejected the appeal but did modify the enforcement notice and said, subject to his amendments, the notice should be upheld.
Monmouthshire Council had argued it was unable to provide the original complaint as “it no longer has the necessary consent to share this evidence as part of the appeal proceedings” but wished to proceed with the enforcement action in light of the alleged “public harm”.
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