A LITTLE boy will be forced to stare at a brick wall every time he looks out his bedroom window now a controversial ‘garden grabbing’ proposal has been given the go-ahead.
An application to build a four bedroom house in Knowle was given the green light with the condition the wall facing the room was painted white, at the last Solihull Council planning committee meeting.
The new home next to 31 Wychwood Avenue will replace an existing garage on the corner plot.
The development will see the existing garden of number 31 divided for the new property, which will be 2.6m away from the boy’s neighbouring home.
The little boy’s father Owen Morgan said his son’s room was small and only had one window.
“I’m not really happy with it and equally not happy with the process we went through to arrive at that position,” he added.
“The planning committee came around to see my house but they didn’t see it was a bad thing.
“Some points were listened to but overall I felt they took no notice and put it through anyway.”
Mr Morgan claimed the dimensions and measurements between the houses were wrong in a previous report and although some had been corrected not all of them had.
“But, it did not seem to matter and was approved anyway,” the father added.
“At the moment my son has a 180° view of the road, it gets sunlight into it but they are going to build a massive great big brick wall so he won’t be able to see anything out of it now.”
A number of concerns were raised with the scheme including with the increase in traffic and insufficient parking, the visible affect and the increased risk of accidents it would cause.
Issues were also raised with the over-development of site and with it being out of keeping with area, spoiling the street scene.
Points were made about all the six corner sites within the estate being designed for one house only to create a spacious look and feel and going against that would see the original intention of the developers lost forever.
Speaker Gareth Jones said the new home fitted in with the area and met with the Council’s requirement.
He claimed it was not cramped and would not have an impact on neighbours, as the proposals were not unreasonable in an urban area.
