3:50pm Wednesday 17th March 2010
An architect was to blame for a terrace of homes in Settle being built not according to plan, Craven councillors heard.
Developer Piero Balsamini told Craven District Council’s planning committee that progress on completing and selling Ingfield Mews, on Skipton Road, had stalled because of the financial situation and uncertainty over its design.
The meeting heard a council enforcement notice calling for the reduction in the height of a gable end at 1 Ingfield Mews to fit the original planning permission had been upheld on appeal by the Secretary of State.
The notice required Mr Balsamini to comply with the original plan by next February – or submit a new, acceptable plan to the council.
The planning meeting was told the new, retrospective planning application to reduce the offending gable end by one metre and install chimneys was acceptable and councillors eventually approved it, despite some concerns it should be turned down to send a tough message to developers.
Ward councillor David Heather (Lib Dem) said Mr Balsamini had done everything he could to make the terrace acceptable.
“He is not a professional developer. He is a local businessman who had a piece of land which he thought he would develop,” he said. “He has been a victim of a poor architect and the trauma of this development which was constructed not to plan.”
Coun Manuel Camacho (Ind) said Mr Balsamini had his sympathies.
“He was genuinely let down by one of his architects and he has now bent over backwards to comply,” he said.
But Coun Stephen Butcher (Cons) said the committee was letting the developer get away with “blue murder”. “We are going to have to do something about enforcement,” he said. “If we don’t, these developers are going to keep on stretching the law and we’re going to look like damn fools.”
And council chairman Coun David Crawford (Cons) said the terrace should be built strictly to its original permission: “We are here as a planning authority; we are not allowed to take into account personal problems of applicants. I would like to see this revert back to the original plans.”
Coun Ady Green (Cons) said ignorance was no excuse. “We should stick to our guns and make him put it back to what it was originally,” he said. “We should refuse it. It is no good blaming builders.”
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