THE installation of PVCu windows in a building in a prominent part of the Bratton Clovelly Conservation Area are to stay ? despite planning officers? recommendations to serve an enforcement order requiring their removal.
West Devon?s planning committee on Tuesday heard the windows were installed at Mill Park without consent ? members were told the windows were out of character within the conservation area and next to a listed building.
Planning officer John Milverton told the committee that if Mill Park was a single dwelling place, planning consent would not have been required for the windows.
However, the cottage had been divided into two flats and as such, the local authority required a planning application for the windows.
Cllr John Hockridge, ward member for Bridestowe, said the owner of the property was ?aggrieved? at the suggestion he should be forced to remove the roadside windows, replacing them with timber frames.
Cllr Hockridge said: ?From the outside you can?t see it?s two flats; it looks as if it?s one building. I hope your committee will bear this in mind and be lenient.?
Cllr Dilwyn Hughes proposed the plastic windows should stay, on the grounds they did not adversely affect the conservation area.
Cllr Roger Mathew, chairman of the committee, said: ?The problem as I see it, is if you do this (allow the PVCu windows to remain), you make it very difficult to enforce in other locations where you might wish to do so ? the danger is you end up with a conservation area looking increasingly like a dog?s breakfast.?
The committee agreed by six votes to two to allow the PVCu windows to remain.