Homebuilding and Renovating Newsletter is not usually a place where one would expect to see a story to make the blood boil. But it has this: “Council’s £70k error stayed hidden for years, until one man refused to back down”.
Steve Dally never expected a minor tweak to his home improvement plans would end in a life-altering legal standoff.
What began as a routine planning permission amendment, spiralled into a punitive bill, threats of repossession, and five years of unrelenting pressure.
Now, Waverley Borough Council admits it got it wrong, but only after one man forced their hand.
In 2018, Dally received planning permission to rebuild his rear extension. It was exempt from the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL).
A year later, he made a minor amendment, but the council treated it as a brand-new build and to his surprise the council issued a £70,000 charge.
“I was blindsided,” Dally said. “It was a technicality. But it nearly ruined us.”
The council refused to budge. Letters, threats, and interest charges followed. “You wouldn’t treat a dog this way,” he said in 2024.
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“The system was set up with no safety net,” admitted Liberal Democrat councillor Liz Townsend. “Even when mistakes happened, we had no way to fix them.”
“No way to fix them”… that awkward feeling when you admit that you wrongfully demanded tens of thousands of pounds from someone and you’d quite like to put it right but you can’t because there isn’t a procedure in the manual.
Evidently a way was found eventually, because on July 8th the council formally admitted its mistake and confirmed Mr Dally would have his money refunded – but I suspect that if it had been someone in the private sector making a spurious demand that the council pay them seventy thousand quid, the discovery of a way to put things right would have taken somewhat less than six years.
Cheshire East Council threatened me with jail if I put up the wrong type of guttering. There are many listed buildings rotting in this “conservation area”. One wonders why.
I knew a guy whose daughter and son in law owned a pub that was a listed building. The window frames were rotten and needed replacing. Obviously UPVC windows couldn’t be used, but they wanted to use better quality hardwood frames that would last longer. Nope, the original frames were softwood so the replacements had to be.
Back when Private Eye was worth reading, they covered the story of an old chapel that couldn’t be re-purposed because the pews were of great historical interest. The building was falling into disrepair because nobody wanted it.
I get that it is useful to have rules that ensure that architecturally significant buildings are preserved. Surely it would be better if some kind of flexibility was built into the system so that such rules could be overridden if it could be shown that they were counterproductive in certain specific cases.
Persecution of an individual sometimes happens – I remember the case of Dr Monks in East Northants, who was systematically persecuted (over fake hygiene issues at pubs he owned) and even sent to prison, where he had a heart attack.
One interesting aspect is that the Local Government Officers do not seem to have had anything against him personally – the bureaucratic process (which includes the courts) just operated – and elected people have little power over local government in order to stop it (“you can not interfere Councillor”).
Dr Monks was “targeted” (I am not sure that is the right word), almost at random, for vicious persecution – and the same thing appears to have happened to Steve Dally.
The state is rather like a rabid dog (or a computer whose programming has become corrupted) – it does not engage in complex thought as to why it should attack someone, it just attacks them. So “but why me?” has no answer – other than the brutal “why not you?”
Councillor Townsend is correct – once the system goes after someone, locally elected councilors can not stop it.
Supposedly to both reduce corruption and the provide uniform regulations and policies over the country, elected councilors have had their powers repeatedly reduced over the years and decades (arguably starting all the way back to 1875 – 150 years ago, when Prime Minister Disraeli passed an Act of Parliament insisting that local councils do about 40 things – whether or not local taxpayers wanted the council to do these things), this process has greatly advanced in recent years.
Please do not mistake me – the above does NOT mean that elected councilors are totally powerless, for example the now Reform Party controlled North Northants Unitary Authority has managed to end the practice of flying various weird flags on council property.
But should they try and change tax-and-spend policies they will find they can NOT (the Council Tax will continue to rise by 4.9% per year) – and if they interfered in an “operational matter”, such as the persecution of an individual – the councilors who tried to stop it would find themselves severely punished, they would be ex councilors (removed) – and might even face more severe punishment.
The change in the British state from a watch dog, to a rabid dog (a dog with rabies) has not happened all at once – it has happened over a long period of time, as the disease has progressed.
Perhaps a better way of thinking about it, would be to imagine a nightwatchman (a human being) who contracts rabies – he does not become an irrational monster at once, it takes time as the disease eats away at him.
But at the end of the process…. you can not reason with him, and you can not bribe him. And he will try and rip out your throat.
If a private sector person like you or me or Steve Dally wrongly invoiced the council for £70,000, they would certainly find a way to oppose it.
But if a “private sector” person like Serco did, the council would find a way to pay that £70,000 of taxpayer’s money every month, and no way to stop making a payment that everybody knew was illegitimate. They would instead bend their efforts to making sure nobody knew this was happening.
There are few things worse than a prideful empowered bureaucrat who realizes he’s made a mistake. He has no moves he can make that don’t hurt his ego.
@Stonyground
I get that it is useful to have rules that ensure that architecturally significant buildings are preserved.
Yes, I agree. And the rule should be if you really care about the architectural significance of a building then make a fair market offer to buy it and then preserve it however, and to whatever degree you like. It isn’t clear at all to me that because some person thinks the pews need preserved that they should be able to capriciously impose that cost on the owner. If they like the damn pews so much, go ahead and buy them.
If such preservation is important to “the community” then let “the community” buy the building and preserve it however they want. “The community” even has the power to force you to sell even if you don’t want to.