I'm glad the planners have shown they have teeth, but in fairness this looks no worse than the dross that surrounds it...

how is that a £500k house?! if the contractor has managed to convince the owner that's 500k worth I'm surprised they have gone into liquidation.

Apparently it's a £160K site and they've spent £300K on the house (though even that amount is difficult to believe). So they'll still have the site, with it's services etc - all is not lost. It's not clear if it was the architect who gave bad advice, or the contractor who built it, or the client who gave the instructions who's at fault. A sorry tale all round though.

I wonder if an architect was involved at all INJ?

This reeks of the typical set up where a house owner/prospective owner approaches a builder who can 'do plans' and entrusts them with everything from there on. Usually with no particularly rigorous contract beyond exchange of monies.

Having tried to compete as an architect in this sort of market, and had far too many bug eyed responses when submitting a fee, I can see there having been little or no architectural involvement.

The other route often gone down is architect appointed to gain planning and building warrant as a homer and not seen or wanted again once paperwork is with the client.

A sad state of affairs if true. And its a bogger.

So CRGP did the retrospective planning application. Did any journalist think to ask who did the original application that was approved??
If CRGP were not involved previously I think it is unfair for them to be tarnished with the story.
I am sure the £50K bathroom and kitchen suites can be sold on as well as the site.
Anyone want some gold plated taps?? Going cheap!!

Mac Mac, I agree that CRGP should not be tarnished with this debacle, however the issue is not with who submitted the original application, as that was granted planning permission. The issue is with who took the decision to depart so drastically from the approved scheme (presumably the Contractor) without reverting to the Council. It happens all the time on much larger schemes and generally leaves Councils under pressure to approve retrospective consent for unacceptable developments. Much harder to justify here, so glad EDC had some teeth (albeit a lot of sympathy for the owner).

Also, glad to see an article on UR where Planners are not being lambasted (however, there's time yet...)

The RIAS should be raising their heads from slumber to use this as an example of what could go wrong when you don't have an agent, such as a registered Architect, looking after your project through the build stages. I imagine they won't and the general public will assume that architects (generally) are to blame.

It's about time that local authorities insisted that all planning & warrant submissions are made by competent professionals with appropriate qualifications (ARB, RIAS, CIAT etc) & PI, in a similar manner to the minimum criteria for an engineers SER. This would close the door on back street design & build contractors and the 'It's a homer, I don't sign the application' culture. Hopefully, design quality would improve as well.

I agree with the above comments.

Assuming CRGP were not the original architects it is a shame the clients did not think about using an architect in the first place! I have walked away from clients before who want to ignore the Planning system.

Come on then UR - any update here?

Why don't you have an updated picture with the flattened site, being scraped over by the Briggs numpties for the marble tiles and candle holders?

Certainly s lot of design snobbery being exhibited here by ARB, RIBA ACIAT contributors. Any wonder that Joe Bloggs sees architects as a self serving bunch who are excellent at spending other people's money and not giving them what they want. Notwithstanding, the poor guy has made some very bad decisions with choice of contractor and designer and is paying the hefty price. At least he'll still have a £160k site.

Where is the snobbery Walt?

I see some concern for how/why a frankly ludicrous situation has come to pass and questions of involvement or lack thereof of an architect.

Is 'qualified' a dirty word to non-architects?

Having looked at the application history online it appears there was no agent with the original application (ref TP/ED/06/1401), 'qualified' or otherwise. Notwithstanding that, the original site owners (different from current owner it would seem) successfully obtained planning consent for the original house. Somehow the constructed house differed dramatically from that approved, and the owner blames the contractor. This would hopefully have been avoided if there had been inspections by a construction professional. I'm guessing the current architects were employed by the new site owner to apply for planning consent retrospectively when the LA got wind of what had been built.
Interestingly (while talking of inspections by construction professionals) there doesnt appear to be a Building Warrant (other than that for the demolition of an existing house) - if there had been, Building Standards may have flagged up this discrepancy either at application stage or on site.
It seems obvious that you should not start work on site before having Planning Permission & Building Warrant in place, but it's amazing how many do.

I note no mention of MRTPI in the list of qualifications banded about above: this all reeks of a lack of understanding (or flagrant disregard) of the requirements of the planning system. I'm surprised such a well off international tennis superstar didn't pay for proper planning advice... A lot of pain could have been avoided with some honest, experienced and well informed advice.

Mr Walt Disney ?
I assume you're a Mickey Mouse designer then ?

#14 Jimbo -
p.s. you do realise it's not the actual tennis playing superstar but just his namesnake

PR - It is actually Andy Murray, international tennis superstar. I always seem to be be behind him when he's having bother with the self-service machines at Morrisons.

No it really is Andy Murray; he had to raise the ceiling height upstairs because he's really tall.

As a follow-up, the house has now been demolished: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2632829/A-VERY-expensive-pile-rubble-500-000-dream-home-bulldozed-breaching-planning-rules-built-6ft-high-family-blame-builders-failing-follow-plans.html
Compare the retrospective application drawings pictured with the street elevation of the house - nice try CRGP!