Camden New Journal - NEws: Basement case

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Camden New Journal - by DAN CARRIER
Published: 20 September 2007

Group to put basement case

THE Heath and Hampstead Society are set to meet Town Hall officers to put forward their case for changing planning rules.
The Society have called for the talks – which will include environment chief Tory councillor Mike Greene – following fears that a rash of planning applications to build basements under homes will cause subsidence, flooding and years of noise and dirt for neighbours.
This year there have been nearly 60 applications in the Hampstead area alone to sink basements into the ground.
Gordon Maclean, chairman of the Society’s Town Committee, which discusses planning issues, said the current planning laws were not strong enough to protect neighbours. He added that Hampstead’s geological make-up – soft sandy soil on top of London clay – meant there was an increased danger of flooding and subsidence, and that trees would also be affected.
Mr Maclean said: “We are going to ask officers to bring in new policies. The applications we are seeing put in are getting more and more outrageous. We have to be reasonable in what we object to – but some of these planning applications will see two or three tiers added below ground.
“The planning officers seem to have a policy of out of sight, out of mind.
“These works do a number of things: to start with, they cause incredible nuisance to neighbours for long periods. They are bad news for gardens – people are building out underneath them and this can cause terrible problems for trees.”
Recent applications include two in Upper Park Road, Belsize Park, to install basements. The owners of the Coach House, built in 1987, have been given permission to dig out underneath their home to create a new room. Further along the road, plans are in place to pull down a house and build a block of luxury flats.

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