Demolition Man

If you’ve ever endured the noise and inconvenience caused by neighbours and their DIY projects, spare a thought for Lucy Grothier. Lucy, who lives in a Regency semi in Twickenham, was at home when a bulldozer began to demolish the adjoining property.

Location of Demolished Property in Trafalgar Road Conservation Area

John Johnson, the owner of the property in question, had been granted planning permission for an extension and basement. While this work would have involved partial demolition, he decided that it would make more sense to demolish the entire building and start from scratch.

Mr Johnson was fined a record £80,000 plus costs for flouting planning rules within a conservation area.

Detailed information about conservation areas can be found at www.findmaps.co.uk, where you can also view information about built heritage and, indeed, planning applications.

Further valuable information can be found under planning applications on the FIND web portal. This layer displays details of all planning applications for properties, whether granted, refused or pending. The applications can be filtered to display information by month, year, size, property type, development type or status of application.