Eric is getting in a right pickle (Pickles promises to revise home extensions plan, www.building.co.uk, 16 April 2013).
This is a piece of ill thought-out legislation, which will not create more work for the building trade and will just cause a lot of neighbour disputes. There are already too many badly designed and constructed “improvements” carried out to dwellings under the permitted development banner. To double the potential extension size is a bad political move. For every vote they gain through a happy owner they will lose many more from upset neighbours.
This is not sour grapes on my part due to the possible loss of call for my architectural services. I will lose some work perhaps but there will still be many schemes which fall outside of the permitted development rights. I just feel this is a knee-jerk reaction to the slump in active building work and is tackling it from the wrong direction. The whole planning process needs simplifying for all schemes - not just allowing a few small proposals to fall out of the trap at the bottom end.
Trevor Bell, Hampshire
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