TWO West Devon home-owners are appealing against enforcement action after planners demanded they remove UPVC windows from their buildings because they are listed.
Paul Douglas from Bridestowe and Paul Ancorn from Exbourne are facing a total bill of more than £13,000 to replace their modern windows with wooden structures.
Mr Douglas, who lives at Royal Oak Cottages, said half of the homes in the conservation area of Bridestowe had UPVC windows, including some which are listed.
?The situation is farcical,? he says. ?There is no consistency. There are buildings in Bridestowe much older than mine which have UPVC windows.?
Mr Douglas said he was unaware when he bought his house, built in the 1870s, that it was listed, and in October last year replaced his rotting wooden sash windows at the front of his home at a cost of £1,300. A retrospective application to West Devon Borough Council?s planning committee for listed building consent in March was turned down.
?It will cost me in excess of £2,000 to put in softwood windows and you cannot get them guaranteed for longer than two years,? he said. ?If the council insists on hardwood windows then the cost will go up further.
?According to the council, UPVC detracts from the character of the building, but we chose windows that suited the building and people from the village have complimented us on them. The only reason they look different is because they are whiter.?
Mr Douglas has also been ordered to remove a satellite dish from the gable end of his house which has been in position for five years, but he said he was determined it would be staying put.
Meanwhile the 17 UPVC windows at Town Farm Cottage in Exbourne were installed around 15 years ago, long before Paul Ancorn bought the property, and will cost more than £10,000 to replace.
Mr Ancorn said his intention had always been to replace them but he wished to negotiate on the choice of window: ?When I purchased this property last September my solicitor informed me that the windows would need to be replaced but that I would have 12 months in which to do it. It is only May and I had just agreed to take on an architect to come up with a solution.?
The borough?s planning committee agreed to take enforcement action on the recommendation of the council?s officers. Planning officer Jane Green said the authority had a special responsibility to protect the character of buildings which were listed by Central Government.
?There are very few cases where an application has been approved for wooden windows to be replaced with UPVC on listed buildings ? it can sometimes happen between an inspection and a formal listing but as a rule we do not allow it,? she said.
She added that just because buildings were old it did not necessarily mean they were listed, for example the 17th century White Hart in Bridestowe. The council had no control over UPVC windows being installed in buildings in conservation areas if they were not listed but it tried to discourage it.
Both owners had six months to comply with the enforcement action or enter further negotiations to find a solution if they wished.