Your Bayswater Conservatives have used ward funds to help pay for a new planning enforcement officer, whose job is to crack down on contractors who make life miserable for residents by not sticking to agreed construction plans.
Richard Holloway, Cllr Suhail Rahuja and Cllr Brian Connell are backing the new Basement Supplementary Planning Document which will shortly be adopted.
This means:
- Plans for new basements must be signed off by a certified engineer, to ensure they are sound, appropriate and safeguard the stability of neighbouring properties.
- Detailed construction plans must minimise noise & disruption to local residents and traffic.
- Neighbours must be kept informed and their legal rights upheld through Party Wall Agreements.
We are backing policy changes now underway which aim to limit underpinned basements to one storey, occupying no more than 50 per cent of the garden and requiring at least 1.2m of soil on top to help with drainage and the reinstatement of proper gardens.
Your councillors have worked hard for you case-by-case, speaking up for residents in planning committees and council meetings, lobbying for changes in national planning policy.
"People think the council has been slow, but it’s important to know that our neighbours in Kensington & Chelsea were forced by the courts to take their basement policy back to the drawing board. We think Westminster's approach is more robust against legal challenges"
Cllr Brian Connell
