A comedian’s efforts to be more environmentally friendly have been thwarted first by councillors and now by a planning inspector.
Simon Evans was granted permission for a crossover from the road to his home, in Denmark Villas, Hove and created a driveway to charge his electric car.
But Mr Evans lives in a conservation area and had to submit a retrospective planning application for the removal of part of his front wall and create a driveway.
The application was turned down by Brighton and Hove City Council’s Planning Committee last November and an appeal has been dismissed by a government-appointed planning inspector.
Six of his neighbours had long-standing crossovers and driveways. Mr Evans said in his appeal statement that his was the only house in a row of six that did not have a driveway.
When his family moved into the house in 2011, a street tree prevented Mr Evans from creating a driveway but the tree was removed two years ago.
Mr Evans also said that the crossover had been approved by a council planning official – but because his home is in the Denmark Villas Conservation Area, planning restrictions override some of the usual “permitted development rights”.
He told the council’s Planning Committee and said in his appeal statement that he wanted to put in a home electric vehicle (EV) charging point.
He said: “It is simply not practical to own an EV at the moment in Hove without one’s own charging point and off-street parking bay.
“As a working, touring comedian, I often drive long journeys and would need to be fully charged before doing so.
“There are very few charging points at all in Hove and they are all over-subscribed and very expensive.
“No one would feel confident of switching without their own overnight facility.”
Dismissing the appeal, the planning inspector said that the main issue was the effect on the character and appearance of the Denmark Villas Conservation Area.
The inspector said that reinstating the brick pier would not mitigate losing the boundary wall – and the brick driveway would be out of keeping with the conservation area.
The inspector said: “I have noted that the appellant and letters of support state that the development would be a suitable use of space and provide access for charging an electric vehicle.
“As a result, there would be some limited environmental and public benefits by allowing cars to be charged privately and not using public charging points which would contribute towards a more sustainable and low-carbon future.
“However, this would not provide sufficient justification to allow the development.”
This shows just how disjointed planning and environmental policies are.
The public charging infrastructure is embarrassingly poor and as such cannot be relied upon. The idea that the removal of a small section of a low level garden wall is detrimental to the character of the area is rather weird when considering the 1960s and 70s architectural monstrosities lying up the road and around the corner. You need a good dose of the hallucinogenic drugs of that era for any of this to make sense!
I guess the main issue here, celebrity connection or not, is that these houses originally had front gardens and not car parks. And that’s why we have conservation areas.
If we allow cars to park in these paved over front gardens, then we also lose the street parking at the drop kerb.
So, 1) In creating a driveway, we lose the rain run off onto green land, and 2) The architectural intent is lost. 3) The council lose their resident parking permit fee.
Cynics here, including me, would suggest the council are worried most about losing their parking permit charge, as a source of income.
If the neighbours already had this parking, then you can see why the owner here, had quite a case.
Simon Evans is quite funny, if occasionally a bit right wing.
Its easy to be “right wing” these days, all you have to do is not 100% agree with the left wing.
Buy a diesel generator and place it next to the car and charge it overnight. Job done!
I seem to recall a recent Private Eye cartoon along similar lines ie; Top tip for EV car owners. Avoid annoying your neighbours by crashing the grid for three days to charge your EV by purchasing a diesel generator!
I’ve never heard of this Simon Evans who describes himself as a comedian and it’s disappointing that he appears to be playing the celebrity, ‘ don’t you know who I am’ card.
We’ve already lost FAR too much of our heritage and too many of our lovely areas have been ruined, ridiculous number of cars that are on the roads nowadays.
If this man wants his own private, off road parking space and facility for an EV charger then he should move to a more suitable property outside of a conservation area in Brighton and Hove and not seek to change the character of the area he is in to fit in with his own requirements.
Also, quite clearly, every person who is given permission in a conservation area to turn a garden into a car park and install a dropped kerb is removing another 1 or 2 parking spaces from the street and gaining 1 or 2 free car parking spaces for themselves. That’s clearly not in the public interest let alone in the interests of preserving a conservation area.
However I agree that the public EV charging infrastructure is a disgrace. People really do need home charging facilities because some of the public EV chargers are absolute rip-offs in terms of what they cost. I recommend avoiding all Instavolt chargers because they debit £45 from your card even if you only top up with £10 and then they hold on to your money for 4 days before refunding it to your bank. Naturally they won’t accept cash, either.
Almost every word of your comment illustrates just how out of touch with every aspect of modern life you are. Congratulations. It must be nice to be so insular that the current realities of life do not concern you.
Simon Evans is great. He is on the superb GB news quite often. Give the man his driveway!
How can they refuse when 6 other houses in same row have this? ridiculous.
6 wrongs don’t make a right.
But three rights make a left.