Planning rules

Test Valley Borough Council (TVBC) have carried out much of this work under Part 12 of the Town and County Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015, as amended.

To the lay person, Part 12 allows local authorities to carry out certain works without requiring specific planning permission.

Hence why TVBC gave itself planning permission, but only to demolish the toilets as they were in the Andover Town Conservation Area.

Therefore, works carried Letters to the Editor 16 Andover Advertiser 27 April, 2018 andoveradvertiser.co.uk email: newsdesk@andoveradvertiser.co.uk 27 April, 2018 Andover Advertiser 17 Camera Club picture of the week EVERY week, we publish on our letters page by using an image submitted to our Andover Advertiser Camera Club.

Each week, we pick out one picture to show off the talents of amateur photographers in the borough.

This picture may or may not be related to the monthly theme of the club, pictures from which we will publish in the last edition of each month.

This week’s image is of the spectacular Saturday night storm as seen from Sheep Fair.

The photographer was ‎Christiano Figo Nicel.‎ The monthly theme for the past month has ‘April showers’ and as well as the pictures featuring in this edition of the Advertiser on page 26, one image will be chosen as the banner picture of the club’s Facebook page for the month.

To join the club, search for Andover Advertiser Camera Club on Facebook.

The class of ‘74 LATER this summer, it will be 44 years since the ‘Class of ‘74’ completed their primary education at Anton Junior School.

And all the more significant as we were in fact the first year to benefit from a brand new school (having been temporarily housed at Wolversdene School in Love Lane whilst the building was under construction over several preceding years).

I am organising a reunion for our year and would like to invite my fellow classmates to come along and enjoy a rare opportunity to revisit our old school whereby the current headteacher has generously offered to provide us with a special tour of the classrooms, the assembly hall and the sports field (where a hearty and competitive spirit was always encouraged rather than decried). It will also provide the chance to reminisce about the good times, to catch up on life events across several decades and to celebrate, or pay thanks for, the benefits of a solid and wellrounded education.

Our year was the era of Tony Cole, Richard Down, David Bullis and Ashley Balch plus Fiona Fettes, Valerie Goddard and Claire Bunker. Whilst social media YOUR VIEWS: Readers are invited to submit letters for publication on any subject. A full name and address and contact phone number must be included but need not be for publication.

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out by TVBC should have been the demolition of the whole of the building not just the front and side walls of the toilet block.

We inspected the works on a daily basis and found that TVBC’s contractors had not demolished the rear wall.

In fact, they built a new wall facing the new car park spaces!

As a consequence, this has serious legal repercussions for the council because:- The toilet block has (a) not been totally demolished, and (b) a new wall has been constructed without planning permission.

The term of ‘demolition’ (in planning terms) has a defined and specific meaning.

It would seem that the authority has not actually demolished the structure in strict meaning of demolition but have actually ‘converted’ the building.

Another aspect, is the fact that new walls have been constructed, when their right to do so specifically excludes ‘any gate, fence, wall or other means of enclosure’.

We have raised all of the above with the head of planning and building at TVBC, Paul Jackson, providing him with previous examples of decisions by the Local Government Ombudsman in this matter, and also text from law journals referring to the extent of his authority’s right to build walls under the above Order.

At the time of writing, TVBC continue to erroneously regard the works carried out as lawful.

This is very worrying, so we are now preparing an application to be sent to the Local Government Ombudsman for adjudication on this matter.

If the Local Government Ombudsman finds against the authority, we think the authority may have a case of maladministration to answer.

It may also be that the decision taken by the Northern Area Planning Committee to permit their own application to demolish the public toilets is illegal.

Paul Flippance, Inter County Surveys, Suffolk Road, Andover