Extensions built without permission allowed to stay

A two-storey extension on the back of a house which was built without planning permission has still been backed by the council.

The work at the home in Wyld’s Lane in Worcester was carried out at the start of 2022 without permission from planners at Worcester City Council.

An application was then put forward by Rozia Hussain asking for permission to build the extensions and box dormer, despite the lion’s share of the work having already been finished, in October last year.

Giving the retrospective work the green light anyway, planning officers at the city council said the extensions would not cause any issues for neighbours and should stay.

Council planners said the original work had not been carried out to a “satisfactory standard” and left the job unfinished leaving friends and family to clear up the mess.

The report from the city council outlining the decision said: “The proposed and existing works would not detract from the character or appearance of the surrounding area and would not harm the residential amenity of existing residents within the immediate and surrounding area of the application site.”

“The issue of noise and disturbance is somewhat inevitable when construction takes place. What has not helped in this case is that the original builders have not completed the work to a satisfactory standard and have since left the job uncompleted with the applicant’s family and friends having to undertake work to tidy the site and make the extensions weatherproof.

“This has ultimately extended the time period of which building work has continued causing further disruption and disturbance to neighbours which causes understandable annoyance.”

The home in Wyld’s Lane has been the subject of a number of planning applications in recent years.

A plan to build a new one-bed two-storey home in the back garden of the Wyld’s Lane home was first given the green light by city council planners in 2018 without providing any car parking despite concerns from the county council’s highways department that the application for the home – which would face the congested Richmond Road – did not fall in line with its standards.

Planning permission ran out in 2021 and was put forward again without any changes in 2022 and subsequently backed again by the city council despite neighbours saying it would be “hideously out of place” among the 100-year-plus-old Victorian homes of neighbours.