This country is run by idiots including the planning department!!

gingermut

this really sucks... what is this crap about getting letters of consent from landowners to maintain hedgerows in order to please the planning department when, the landowners get grants to maintain these hedgerows and do maintain them... seems ridiculous that we then get planning refused because we cannot get one landowner that is maintaining his own hedges to sign a letter saying that he will "let us maintain them".

A serious flaw that to me has made our piece of land we wanted to build on pretty much worthless. :mad:

Mellor

Do you know the reason that hedges must be maintained?
If you did, I doubt you would post such nonsense.

gingermut

3. Landowner/ Occupier Responsibilities
It is clear from the 1993 Roads Act that the landowner/occupier generally has
responsibility for cutting hedges/ trees, etc. along the public roads. Subsection 70 (2) (a) of
the 1993 Roads Act which covers hedgecutting, states:

“The Owner or Occupier of land shall take all reasonable steps to
ensure that a tree, shrub, hedge or other vegetation on the land is not a hazard or potential hazard to persons using a public road and
that it does not obstruct or interfere with the safe use of a public
road or the maintenance of a public road”.


This section of the Act makes it clear that the legal responsibility for trees/hedges rests with the landowner or occupier on whose land the tree/hedge is growing.



So... you tell me why I need a letter of conesent to maintain someone elses hedgerows when the law shows the landowner must maintain them themselves







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Mellor

First of all, try and post in a format that is easy to read.
Secondly, the section of the roads act that you refer to is in relation with maintaining hedges so that they are not a hazard when using a the road. The key difference with your case is that you are adding an entrance. The sightlines and maintainance required are obviously different.

gingermut

Mellor wrote: »

First of all, try and post in a format that is easy to read.
Secondly, the section of the roads act that you refer to is in relation with maintaining hedges so that they are not a hazard when using a the road. The key difference with your case is that you are adding an entrance. The sightlines and maintainance required are obviously different.

incorrect, an entrance & roadway already exists and has been there for many many years

Poor Uncle Tom

The entrance you already have, is it used for agricultural purposes or is it serviceing a house? If you are proposing to upgrade or change the use of an entrance the LA will ask for the full sight line and/or setback requirements as laid out in the county development plan. Any fence setback outside of the sight or ownership may be part of a seperate letter of cover (most likely the cause in your case).

Mellor

gingermut wrote: »

incorrect, an entrance & roadway already exists and has been there for many many years

irrelevent, it still has to maintained to current standards

muffler

Next thing we'll see is a complaint about having to install a septic tank as there is a dry toilet on site

BoozyBabe

Well, if it makes you feel any better Gingermut, we got ours refused because we didn't provide a letter to say we'd permission to maintain OUR OWN hedgeways!!!!!!

Shower of W@nkers!!!!!!

We resubmitted the plans EXACTLY the same, & we've been verbally told they will be approved this/next week

RKQ

Proposed Sight-lines are a Road safety issue - to protect the safety of all road users! It is probably unlikely that houses with "concealed" entrances - requiring mirrors etc - would get planning permission today.

Many people forget its not only important for you to see safely in both directions from your entrance, as you exit but it is very important the on-coming traffic can see you as you enter your entrance from the public road! ( Imagine driving at 75kph around a bent straight into the back of a car - stopped on the road waiting to turn into their entrance!)

Talk to your neighbour, resolve the issue and get a letter of consent from them, otherwise look for a site with proper sight-lines.

Slig

How the hell can we expect planners to do their job (looking at the site in question and assessing its suitability for a house) when everybody expects any old piece of land to be a viable site.

If it doesnt pass a site assessment because your trial hole looks like old faithful then its not the planners fault. Your site isnt a site its a field!

If you dont have adequate site lines without demolishing 100m of mature trees and hedgerows then your site isnt a site its a field!

If you are refused planning for a 2.5 storey brick country pile on top of a hill its not the planners fault, your site isnt a site its a field!

and to add to that, getting the local councillor to call in and do a Mrs Doyle on the offending planner (Go on, Go on, Go on, you will!!) should not get you planning. Look at our falling economy and the cause/reason behind it. Too much building.
How many houses are lying empty because developers built estates in the middle of nowhere? and it wasent just developers, I drove around westport over the weekend and every second rural one off house is for sale!!

Just because you have a field does not mean you are devinely entitled to put a house on it. Plant a couple of fruit trees or something. It will be better for the economy, your wallet and your blood pressure. Its got to the stage where its cheaper to buy a house than build one anyway.

PS: dont take any of the above to mean I disagree with you about the problems with the planning system. Planners are still the guilty party.

sydthebeat

gingermut wrote: »

this really sucks... what is this crap about getting letters of consent from landowners to maintain hedgerows in order to please the planning department when, the landowners get grants to maintain these hedgerows and do maintain them... seems ridiculous that we then get planning refused because we cannot get one landowner that is maintaining his own hedges to sign a letter saying that he will "let us maintain them".

A serious flaw that to me has made our piece of land we wanted to build on pretty much worthless. :mad:

were you buying the land???

if so, go off and buy a piece of land that conforms to all relevant standard...

rosullivan

gingermut wrote: »

this really sucks... what is this crap about getting letters of consent from landowners to maintain hedgerows in order to please the planning department when, the landowners get grants to maintain these hedgerows and do maintain them... seems ridiculous that we then get planning refused because we cannot get one landowner that is maintaining his own hedges to sign a letter saying that he will "let us maintain them".

A serious flaw that to me has made our piece of land we wanted to build on pretty much worthless. :mad:

The OP does make a valid point. Here are two legislative codes that clash. On the one hand the landowner may be getting REPS payments to maintain the hedgerows for environmental reasons. On the other hand, the OP needs to get a letter from the landowner confirming he can maintain that landowner's hedges. The landowner may be reluctant to give the letter if he feels either (a) he doesn't have to or (b) it might endanger his REPS payments. If you have dealt much with farmers, you'll know they are usually pretty slow to do anything which would (in their minds) unnecessarily endanger their grant payments.

OP, I'd suggest you take a deep breath, bite your tongue and go play nice with the local planners. They may well be a shower of incompetents (don't know them personally), but you'll have to persuade them to drop or adjust the condition if you are to build (or else appeal it - playing nice with the planners may be cheaper).

Slig

If the application is refused for inadequate sightlines then no ammount of talking nice will get you a grant. Any new application will have to address the reasons for the original refusal.

muffler

Slig wrote: »

If the application is refused for inadequate sightlines then no ammount of talking nice will get you a grant. Any new application will have to address the reasons for the original refusal.

Agreed.

Tester46

Slig wrote: »

If the application is refused for inadequate sightlines then no ammount of talking nice will get you a grant. Any new application will have to address the reasons for the original refusal.

That's if that is the case (I don't know if it is or isn't). Anyway, my point above was about two conflicting legislative codes and the possible reasons a farmer may not want to give the letter required by the council.

sydthebeat

Tester46 wrote: »

That's if that is the case (I don't know if it is or isn't). Anyway, my point above was about two conflicting legislative codes and the possible reasons a farmer may not want to give the letter required by the council.

the then other points above apply...

a piece of a field is not automatically a 'site'....
if the subject land does not conform to proper standards then the council are correct to refuse planning on it...

if the landowner doesnt maintain the hedgerow to proper standards, then they may be liable to action... but this has NOTHING to do with any automatic assumption of maintainance....

Tester46

sydthebeat wrote: »

a piece of a field is not automatically a 'site'....

Agreed, but almost every field is potentially a site under the planning code.

if the landowner doesnt maintain the hedgerow to proper standards, then they may be liable to action... but this has NOTHING to do with any automatic assumption of maintainance....

Again agreed. But I was simply pointing out that because a farmer might be getting a grant payment under one code (the REPS code), he may then be very reluctant to give a letter to the OP which implies the OP may maintain the hedge, not the farmer.

This has the practical effect of disadvantaging the OP, who is at the mercy of a third party (the farmer), notwithstanding your valid points about sightlines..

Slig

Lets look at this from the planners point of view. The sight line must be maintained, if its not then the site has inadequate sightlines and is therefor not suitable to build a house on.

The farmer is not the person affected by the inadequate sightlines, its the applicant and therefor the applicant must ensure that adequate sightlines are achieved. If the applicant cannot guarantee (or provide a written declaration of responsability) that the sightlines are maintained then the planner cannot grant permission.

This is a very standard request by almost all LA's. There are too many one off houses granted permission in this country. They are the main reason that we have an inadequate public transport network, poor roads and lack of services. Everybody is there to criticise the planners about refusing planning permissions but I personally think there should be more refusals of one off houses in the country. Its costing us all extra to fund services being brought 10 miles to one single house in the middle of nowhere.

Tester46

Slig wrote: »

This is a very standard request by almost all LA's. There are too many one off houses granted permission in this country. They are the main reason that we have an inadequate public transport network, poor roads and lack of services. Everybody is there to criticise the planners about refusing planning permissions but I personally think there should be more refusals of one off houses in the country. Its costing us all extra to fund services being brought 10 miles to one single house in the middle of nowhere.

You are probably right, but in how many cases do the county councils actually bring services 10 miles to one single house in the middle of nowhere? If they run run so much as one centimetre of water pipe up to a private one-off house in the middle of nowhere, do they not charge the applicant for it (I genuinely don't know, I just thought they did).

gingermut

Slig wrote: »

The farmer is not the person affected by the inadequate sightlines, its the applicant and therefor the applicant must ensure that adequate sightlines are achieved. If the applicant cannot guarantee (or provide a written declaration of responsability) that the sightlines are maintained then the planner cannot grant permission.

This is a very standard request by almost all LA's. There are too many one off houses granted permission in this country. They are the main reason that we have an inadequate public transport network, poor roads and lack of services. Everybody is there to criticise the planners about refusing planning permissions but I personally think there should be more refusals of one off houses in the country. Its costing us all extra to fund services being brought 10 miles to one single house in the middle of nowhere.

1st... the farmer is already maintaining the hedgerows, this in turn gives us the required sightlines.... so I cannot see why we need a letter of consent just to please the planners...

2nd... WTF is it costing you all extra to fund services.. you are talking rubbish, we would have had our own well, we would have paid the ESB connection, not you and the sewarage system was to be a private system not connected to the public system...

Quazzie

gingermut wrote: »

1st... the farmer is already maintaining the hedgerows, this in turn gives us the required sightlines.... so I cannot see why we need a letter of consent just to please the planners...

2nd... WTF is it costing you all extra to fund services.. you are talking rubbish, we would have had our own well, we would have paid the ESB connection, not you and the sewarage system was to be a private system not connected to the public system...

Who pays for the Fire Brigade service when you pull out in front of a car because you pulled out on front of an incoming car because you couldn't see it coming?

gingermut

Quazzie2002 wrote: »

Who pays for the Fire Brigade service when you pull out in front of a car because you pulled out on front of an incoming car because you couldn't see it coming?

it's not the point... the road in question is a road that you cannot drive at more than 40kmph on, it is just so narrow, windy and hilly and to drive at more than that speed would be wreckless driving and then that driver would be at fault.... so in my opinion 70m to 80m would have been adequate not the 130m

Tester46

We have a planning system that looks fine on paper and makes perfect sense when you examine the theory of it (e.g. the issue of having proper sightlines). However, the implementation of it leads a huge amount to be desired. Like it or not, a lot of the planning system is at the whim of a bunch of incompetent public servants who will get paid their salary anyway whether they do their jobs properly or not. And that makes it even harder for those good public servants (of which there are many I'm sure) to their jobs properly.

That goes someway towards explaining those huge mock-Georgian houses you see in the countryside, complete with Grecian pillars and concrete lions standing guard at the front door. And all those pesky hedgrows torn down and replaced with lovely concrete walls and iron railings, so that you can see oncoming traffic, and everyone within a 25 mile radius can see your new environmental disaster of a house.

Slig

gingermut wrote: »

1st... the farmer is already maintaining the hedgerows, this in turn gives us the required sightlines.... so I cannot see why we need a letter of consent just to please the planners...

2nd... WTF is it costing you all extra to fund services.. you are talking rubbish, we would have had our own well, we would have paid the ESB connection, not you and the sewarage system was to be a private system not connected to the public system...

If the farmer is genuinely maintaining the hedgerows (and not just cutting them once a year) the a letter stating that the hedgerows are being maintained by your neighbour would be a good start. Next would be documentary evidence, photographs, of the required sightlines. Was this brought up in a further information request? How was it answered?

2nd, Eircom are justifying the broadband cost and lack of service in rural areas to having to bring signal to houses in the middle of nowhere. There is no bus service between my village and the town I work in because even though there are lots of people that do the same commute 90% of them would still have to drive down to the village from their houses a mile or two outside the village.
That is my experience, I'm not getting into the argument about group water schemes, pollution from all the one off treatment plants and maintenance of roads.

If you want to build a rural house the planning will be a problem. Its the way it should be. I wish it was because of leglislation, correct zoning and a thorough investigation of each application on its own metits but failing that I will take incompotent planners and a lottery type planning system.

Slig

Unfortunately thats our planning system. Why can this house that is well designed, sited and complies with all requirements of the development plan be refused while that monstrosity is granted. I have brought this up with various LA's and the answer I get is "thats the past we wont make the same mistake again." Laughable if your not the one involved.

gingermut wrote: »

it's not the point... the road in question is a road that you cannot drive at more than 40kmph on, it is just so narrow, windy and hilly and to drive at more than that speed would be wreckless driving and then that driver would be at fault.... so in my opinion 70m to 80m would have been adequate not the 130m

As long as the other driver is at fault, its ok. Why prevent an accident when you can just insure that someone else is at fault. I have often heard of relatives of victims of RTAs comforted by the knowledge that it was somebody elses fault.

Tester46

Slig wrote: »

I wish it was because of leglislation, correct zoning and a thorough investigation of each application on its own metits but failing that I will take incompotent planners and a lottery type planning system.

Ah, it's great to be Irish! What performance gains did benchmarking give us in the planning departments?

Tester46

Does your council have a rural development guide (like the excellent cork co co one)? It might help you in dealing with the council.

unfortunately, even though the rural development guides state what the councils are looking for in a one-off rural development, they continue to give planning permission to the bastard offspring of a Spanish hacienda, an English country home and a light industrial unit.

gingermut

Slig wrote: »

If the farmer is genuinely maintaining the hedgerows (and not just cutting them once a year) the a letter stating that the hedgerows are being maintained by your neighbour would be a good start. Next would be documentary evidence, photographs, of the required sightlines. Was this brought up in a further information request? How was it answered?

Now someone is coming up with a good idea, I like that... and I think I will see if that will work.

As for the FI, the letter of consent was all we needed but we could not get it because the farmer did not approve of someone else "maintaining" his property!

Slig

Tester46 wrote: »

Does your council have a rural development guide (like the excellent cork co co one)? It might help you in dealing with the council.

unfortunately, even though the rural development guides state what the councils are looking for in a one-off rural development, they continue to give planning permission to the bastard offspring of a Spanish hacienda, an English country home and a light industrial unit.

Poor Uncle Tom

Tester46 wrote: »

....the bastard offspring of a Spanish hacienda, an English country home and a light industrial unit.

Menage a Trois........and they weren't even married you say..........:D

muffler

gingermut wrote: »

1st... the farmer is already maintaining the hedgerows, this in turn gives us the required sightlines.... so I cannot see why we need a letter of consent just to please the planners...

2nd... WTF is it costing you all extra to fund services.. you are talking rubbish, we would have had our own well, we would have paid the ESB connection, not you and the sewarage system was to be a private system not connected to the public system...

Play nice or dont play at all

muffler

This is going nowhere. Locked.