Did Hounslow Council fail Manor Vale Residents?

Backstory

I’m just a regular leaseholder of a flat in Manor Vale, Brentford. A few years back, against residents’ wishes, the roofspaces in our blocks were converted to 7 flats. Soon after the flats were finished, sold, and new residents moved in, cracks started to appear in the buildings. It turns out the roof is no longer structurally sound and will require extensive repair work incurring significant costs. Costs which are likely to fall to people like myself, a regular leaseholder.

The Manor Vale RTM directors have written a detailed summary of these events which can be found here.

My story

Although this has been going on for some time, this has only been communicated to the leaseholders over the last few months. As you can imagine it’s been a shock to the system! Like most other leaseholders, I’ve been trying to get my head around the situation. Surely the builders need to fix the damage they’ve caused? Or was it the architects that got it wrong? Shouldn’t they have to pay for their miscalculations? What about the people that signed off the construction, didn’t they fail us too? Why should the leaseholders have to foot the bill for the repairs? These simple questions don’t appear to have simple answers, and it looks like this is all going to take some time to sort out.

So to try to get a better handle on what was going on, I set about trawling through some of the (excruciatingly dull) legal documents that had been shared, in an attempt to make sense of this entire mess. It was then that I came across a document from Hounslow Council…

More flats!

It turns out that those dastardly so-called property developers Manor Vale Lodge Ltd actually tried to get planning permission in 2019 to build a further 6 studio flats! This was in addition to the 7 that have actually been built! The application, dated September 2019, was refused later that year in December. An appeal was lodged which was dismissed in March 2020 following a site visit by the council earlier that month (just squeezed it in before lockdown).

As I read this appeal dismissal document I felt a warm sense of satisfaction. At last somebody had seen some sense. I couldn’t help but feel we’d dodged a bullet by having the application rejected.

My eyes cast across point number 4 of the reasons for dismissal -

Policy SC5 of the London Borough of Hounslow Local Plan (2015-2030) (the LP) requires that development proposals demonstrate compliance with the Nationally Described Space Standard (NDSS), paragraph 10(i) of which requires that the minimum floor to ceiling height is 2.3m for at least 75% of the Gross Internal Area (GIA) of each dwelling.

The flats must have a minimum floor to ceiling height of 2.3m for at least 75% of the total area of the flat. Excellent, nobody wants to live in a hobbit hole (unless you’re a hobbit of course). I’m glad there’s protection against this sort of thing.

On further reading -

Less than 50 per cent of the GIA of each of the proposed studio flats would achieve the required ceiling height, which is not disputed by the appellant. As such, the quality of the internal space of each of the proposed studio flats would fall someway short of what is required by the Council’s policy, leading to a cramped and claustrophobic living environment.

Less than 50%! Wow they really were trying to build a series of caves. And Manor Vale Lodge Ltd didn’t even dispute this? You mean, they were knowingly trying to build hobbit holes? What are these people like?

I read some more…

I appreciate that the ceiling heights of the flats in the consented scheme may also fail to meet the aforementioned requirements. The circumstances behind the Council’s decision to accept this position are not before me.

Wait a minute, what was that? The consented scheme also fails to meet these standards? What is this consented scheme you speak of? I do a quick search of the document and in section 3 towards the top I find a brief description of the Manor Vale site -

The appeal site is situated within an area predominantly residential in character and concerns three of the four separate blocks of flats in Manor Vale. Each block is of three storeys but the roofspaces of Blocks A, B and C, the subject of this appeal, have already been converted to provide seven 2-bedroom flats (the consented scheme).

You mean the consented scheme is the 7 flats that you already granted planning permission for? The flats that have already been built and now have people living in them? And you’re saying that these flats fail to meet the hobbit hole prevention standards?

(Head explodes)

…I have considered the individual merits of the appeal scheme and found harm for the reasons outlined above. Therefore, the apparent absence of harm in relation to the internal space within the flats in the consented scheme would not outweigh the harm I have identified.

In other words, we messed up last time but that doesn’t mean you can get away with it this time.

I couldn’t believe it! Was my understanding correct? Had the council approved the original 7 flats in error? Do they really fail to meet the Nationally Described Space Standard?

Digging deeper

I did a quick Google search¹ to see if I could find the floor plans of the (already sold) flats online anywhere. I came across Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward where I could see -

Approximate Area = 1204 sq ft / 111.8 sq m
Including Limited Use Area(s) = 340 sq ft / 31.5 sq m

What does this mean? Is the Limited Use Area not at full height? Is the Including Limited Use Area(s) in addition to the Approximate Area or already included within that figure? It’s a bit ambiguous but maybe the full height area is -

111.8 - 31.5 = 80.3 sq m 

In which case the percentage would be -

80.3 / 111.8 * 100 = 71.8% 

So that means 71.8% of the flat is of full height? Hm, seems to be a little short of minimum required 75%.

Given the ambiguity, I’m not sure if these numbers are correct so I continue investigating. What else did I find? According to Prime Location -

Approximate Gross Internal Area
941 sq ft / 87.50 sq m
(Including Eaves Storage and RHA)
1216 sq ft / 113 sq m

It seems to be the same flat / floorplan but the numbers are quite different albeit less ambiguous (although I’ve no idea what RHA stands for). In this instance I get -

87.5 / 113 * 100 = 77.4%

77.4%, just above the 75% minimum. Again, I’m not sure these numbers are correct given how much they vary from the Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward website or whether I’m even interpreting them correctly.

Then I had a brainwave, why don’t I just check the actual plans submitted to the council? You know, the ones that the decision to grant planning application was based on? So I searched the Hounslow planning applications website and eventually found the relevant plan. And there it was, in black and white, clear as day, on pages 2, 3, and 4 for blocks A, B and C -

FLAT GIA = 68 sq m
48 sq m @ C 2.3 m = 70.5% OF GIA

70.5% of Gross Internal Area at 2.3m height, somewhat short of the required minimum of 75%.

I was gobsmacked.

What now?

How did this happen? How did this slip through the net? Didn’t anybody check this? Did the architects knowingly design flats that failed to meet these standards? What about the estate agents that eventually sold the flats, were they aware? What about the residents that live there now, do they know? Do they have a claim against anybody? Are they hobbits?

What a complete balls-up. I’m astonished at how Hounslow Council can miss something that appears to be pretty fundamental and in plain sight. A multi-million pound construction project should never have happened.

But what now? Where do we go from here? Can anything be done? Who knows…

And who has to live with it all? You guessed it.

The Fleeceholder.

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Further info

Hounslow planning applications search

Planning application for 6 studio flats (refused)

Hounslow System Reference: P/2019/3356

Planning Reference: 00133/AW/P6

Appeal decision

Planning application for 7 flats (granted)

Hounslow System Reference: P/2016/5666

Planning Reference: 00133/AW/P4

Plan

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