Our neighbour was forced to tear down their driveway gym… they claimed we all used it but we never saw inside
PEOPLE living near a man who was forced to tear down his driveway gym say he claimed his neighbours used it – but they’d never seen inside.
Madam Pal Singh was given the green light to build a single-storey garage at his semi in Highgate, Birmingham in 2019.
But when a bigger property appeared at the end of the driveway last year, town hall planners demanded it be razed to the ground.
It was then claimed earlier this year that the two-storey building was a gym used by three or four families.
Now, those living nearby have opened up – and said they’d never stepped foot in the supposed gym.
One neighbour told The Sun: “It’s news for me. I have never seen inside it.
“It was two storeys before but then they dropped it down to one. It had a dormer.”
Singh was given until July to pull down the new building for being in breach of the original planning permission.
Now, it appears work has been carried out on the building to fit in with planning restrictions.
A woman who answered the door at the address in recent days refused to comment.
However, speaking in January, a woman who lived in the house said: “We use it as a gym, we go in there every day.
“We all go in there – there are about four or five families around here. We all use the gym.
“We’re not ashamed of it. We’ve got nothing to prove to anyone. We’re not on benefits, we spent our hard-earned money to build what we’ve built.”
But not all neighbours have an issue with the garage.
One told The Sun: “It’s got nothing to do with anybody as it’s their property.
“They asked if they could build a garage, I know them. They had permission for garage and gym.
“They can do whatever they want to do. That’s nothing to do with nobody.”
It comes after Planning Inspector Thomas Shields wrote in his report after visiting the house last March: “The appellant’s case is that the building already benefits from planning permission granted by the council in 2019.
“He argues that although there are differences between the approved plans for the garage and the appeal building they are minor differences.
‘DEMOLITION’
“The approved plans for the garage show a single storey detached garage with a footprint of 5.3m x 4.6m and a height of 3.6m.
“It was also shown having a standard garage door to the front and no windows on any elevation.
“In comparison with the approved garage the appeal building has a footprint of approximately 8.7m x 4.7m and a height of 5.3m
“Consequently, it is substantially larger than the approved building. It is not a minor difference.
“There are some other differences. Instead of single-storey, the appeal building is 1.5 storey and has two rooms in the roof, facilitated by an almost full-width box dormer.
“Instead of a garage door, there is a pedestrian door into the front room and a tripartite bow window.
“Two more windows in the rear elevation serve a separate, smaller room.
“All of these differences, between what was approved, and what has been built, are not minor.
“Since the appeal building bears little resemblance to the scale and design of the approved single-storey garage, it does not benefit from that planning permission.
“The requirements of the notice are: demolish the entire unauthorised detached structure and remove all demolished building materials and rubble from the premises.”
A spokesperson for Birmingham City Council previously said: “We served an EN (enforcement notice) for the demolition of the unauthorised structure when the owner lost at appeal.
“We are in discussions with the owner re timeline. Compliance with the notice was due by July 1, 2022.”