A recent row over the council's refusal to allow a homeowner to keep solar panels on his barn roof continued today on BBC Wales news (not online). The row centres around the fact that the dwelling is a listed building and although the barn is not listed, it is within the curtilage. The homeowner, a Mr Bazalgette has also lost a planning appeal and will eventually be forced to remove the panels.
The question is whether or not solar panels are detrimental to the historic setting, something of a subjective view, and this case has highlighted the inconsistent and muddled approach taken by different local authorities. Carmarthenshire council, meanwhile, has said that it will continue to take a 'balanced' approach, whatever that might mean.
I'm not quite sure what the council's current interpretation of 'balanced' is, but perhaps, as a basis, they should take into account their decision in 2011 to let the chief executive put solar panels on his cowshed roof, also in the curtilage of a listed building, and in a Conservation Area. The application was in his wife's name.
Surely, on balance, that should mean the all-clear for Mr Bazalgette. Or are chief executives' curtilages different from everyone else's?
The question is whether or not solar panels are detrimental to the historic setting, something of a subjective view, and this case has highlighted the inconsistent and muddled approach taken by different local authorities. Carmarthenshire council, meanwhile, has said that it will continue to take a 'balanced' approach, whatever that might mean.
I'm not quite sure what the council's current interpretation of 'balanced' is, but perhaps, as a basis, they should take into account their decision in 2011 to let the chief executive put solar panels on his cowshed roof, also in the curtilage of a listed building, and in a Conservation Area. The application was in his wife's name.
Surely, on balance, that should mean the all-clear for Mr Bazalgette. Or are chief executives' curtilages different from everyone else's?