A senior member of the planning department had stated in a lovely PDF that the extension would oversail the existing driveway parking area which is accessed via an established vehicle crossover and would not allow the owner to park vehicles in a different part of the site to that used currently. What I want to know is, how is this possible if the ‘current’ driveway layout submitted was incorrect (as I feel it was) and that as I keep saying, the driveway is partially changing position?

Whether my belief is right or wrong, why have my questions not been addressed and was any due diligence done (i.e. check the land registry against the plan)?

If there was an error on the ‘current’ plan, I am sure on the applicant’s behalf this was accidental, however how can the planning department not have spotted this or if it was correct, why has this not been concisely advised to me?

If incorrect, then I believe it would be contrary to the senior official’s statement, so would the approval still be valid?

I have been made aware by our surveyor that the Party Wall Act (rules of what can be done when your boundary meets your neighbour’s) allows the petitioners access onto your property to use it when carrying out works on the adjacent land. Things such as scaffolding supports and scaffolding over your property are completely allowed; even if the supports are on a separate plot to the adjacent land that you just so happen to own (not adjacent to the petitioner’s land). The only time they cannot enter or make construction upon your property is I am being told by the surveyor, when it causes an ‘unnecessary inconvenience‘. I still do not have a definition of what this means but the fact is that everything I have in my opinion shows that we will not be able to use the additional land we own (as we always do) to exit the passenger side of our vehicle. In short, due to the width of the drive and that the imminent plan appears to me to ‘fence us in’ (ten scaffolding supports along approximately 15 feet of our drive), I cannot see how we will be able to use our driveway as it looks to me as if we won’t be able to get out of our car! I’m beginning to think that I would need to suffer an injury before the ‘unnecessary inconvenience‘ criteria kicks in; even then I would surmise I would probably be expected to clean up first and then crawl away so as not to become a nuisance.

The council also wrote in their approval of the plans that no ‘encroachment‘ onto our property was to take place, oh well that seems to have very little actual meaning.

I have received several PDF responses from Thurrock council, all forwarded by someone in the ‘Chief Executive’s office‘. Firstly I always thought that was a business title, not one for someone running a body on behalf of elected officials with the purpose of serving their constituents. I also could not find anything on the council’s site telling the people who and what responsibilities the management are/have; unlike most other official sites. So referring just to the site, I do not know who the Chief Executive is.

With online searching I found articles on the Chief Executive. I may be naive but I would have thought someone who had lived in the area or at least had worked in a county/borough with a similar profile would have been appointed – from what I can tell, neither of these were met (knowing someone who lives in one of the boroughs they worked) but I am happy to be corrected.

***UPDATE*** I have found the Chief Executive and all are on the Thurrock Council site, just unlike say Harringey Council’s site, it is not on the home page options – if it is I don’t understand the header used. The only way I found the pages was through Google, so I stand by my point.