PLANNING officers failed to notice that a brand new block of flats was being built contrary to its planning permission, despite making more than 30 visits to the site, it has been claimed.
Bournemouth councillors were told of a list of areas in which the three-storey block of 11 flats at Nortoft Road, Charminster, deviated from approved plans.
These included the bin and cycle store being built in the wrong position, the car parking area being laid out incorrectly with the loss of one parking space, a smoke vent added on top of the flat roof and two additional Velux roof lights installed.
Once the breaches were noticed, developer Creative Corvette Developments submitted a retrospective application for the changes.
Members of the planning board approved the application but they did so reluctantly and only after asking how the situation was allowed to happen in the first place. Cllr Carol Ainge, ward councillor for Queens Park and Charminster, said the wrong positioning of the bin store had caused a particular problem because the site cannot now accommodate the Eurobins it was supposed to have.
Instead, residents are to use half-size Eurobins, which a caretaker will take out and bring in on collection day.
Cllr Ainge called for guarantees that residents would not have to do this job themselves.
“I believe that we should insist that a professional management company be used with guarantees that this service will be carried out every week of the year and a set amount of years to be agreed,” she said.
She added there had been 34 visits to the site by planning inspectors and enforcement officers and could not understand how the faults went unnoticed.
“I also find it totally unacceptable that a developer can build a block of flats contrary to the granted plans and when caught out can just submit a retrospective planning application,” she said.
“What sort of message is this sending out to the residents of Bournemouth?”
Planning board chairman John Beesley spoke of his “frustration” at the situation and said the planning board had been left in an “unsatisfactory position”.
Tom Green, of Green-ward Associates, who was the liaison for Creative Corvette Developments, said the original planning permission, won on appeal, dated from a time when they did not have to measure the site so closely and they called in officials as soon as they realised there was a difference.
He said that such small changes would normally be permitted.
