This story in today’s Trumpet of Truth (South Wales Echo) is about a nursery school in Penarth, South Wales, who use the cabin as an extra classroom for the tots are being told to tear it down by Vale of Glamorgan Council.

Photo :Media Wales / Picture by Andrew Davies

CHILDREN have launched a campaign to save their nursery’s play cabin after planners ordered it to be torn down.

The wooden cabin, in the grounds of St Aubin nursery in Archer Road, Penarth, was built last July.

Nursery owner Sue Evans claims she was told at the time that the structure did not require planning approval. It has been used as an outdoor classroom ever since.

But Vale of Glamorgan council planners have now decided the cabin breaches conservation area planning rules and will have to be demolished.

Jodie Evans, a manager at the nursery, said there was confusion over when the nursery was included in the conservation area. But she said that, in any event, the cabin was not obtrusive and had not sparked any complaints, except from the planners.

“The classroom plays a crucial role in the children’s learning and is in line with the Welsh Assembly Government’s foundation phase of education which encourages outdoor learning,” she said.

“Yet we have been told to take it down because the wood does not match the red brick of the nursery building and is therefore out of character in the conservation area. It’s hard to see what the problem is when you consider that it’s built on the site of our former, smaller cabin.”

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The TimesArgus reports

A Montpelier restaurateur whose home overlooks Berlin Pond has been told to move the ornate “garden shed” that he “inadvertently” built on city property about 50 feet from water’s edge earlier this year.

The request to Philip Gentile to move the shed that he mistakenly built on Montpelier property back in May came from Berlin Town Administrator Jeff Schulz.

Schulz, who doubles as Berlin’s zoning administrator, spent the summer gently nudging Gentile and Montpelier, which owns the property the structure is located on, to move the tastefully constructed camp-like structure that faces the pond and features a covered deck, custom woodwork and more windows than your average “garden shed.”

According to Schulz, the shed was built in violation of both its year-old permit and Berlin’s zoning ordinance. Berlin Pond is the source of the public drinking water supply for the state capital.

Based on the permit that was approved last October, Schulz said the shed should have been built on Gentile’s land – perhaps 250 feet from its current location. Instead, he said it was constructed in a wetland, the floodplain and a “buffer area” for a nearby stream that feeds the pond, all in violation of the town’s zoning ordinance

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According to the Guardian

London mayor takes down summer house built on balcony of his Islington home following complaints that it was erected without planning permission.

Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, faced embarrassment today after it emerged he has taken down a wooden shed he built on the balcony of his home following complaints to his local council.

As mayor, Johnson is in charge of planning issues in the capital. But he appears to have overlooked the rules when he erected the shed on a first floor balcony at his home in Islington more than two weeks ago.

Neighbours complained that it was an “eyesore” and that it should not have been put up at his Georgian house, which is a Grade II listed building, without planning permission.

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I missed this last week but you can see pics here Daily mail so you may not want to click.

A millionaire businessman has been ordered to make amendments to his new £300,000 “beach hut” after he apparently built an upper-storey sun deck without planning permission.

West Dorset District Council has issued an enforcement notice against car designer Simon Saunders after he failed to keep to the terms of the permission granted for the new chalet at West Bexington overlooking Chesil Beach.

The property was controversial when originally approved as it was much larger than the neighbouring 13 chalets, which have stood in place for more than 70 years and which can sell for up to £340,000.

Planning permission was granted for the new chalet in April 2007 although it was only as building work developed that residents noticed its scale.

West Dorset District Council then asked for it to be painted in a sensitive colour to help it blend in with the neighbouring huts.

But the latest addition of a folding flap to reveal a second floor sun deck has prompted further complaints.

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The telegraph reports

Photo: BNPS.co.uk /Peter Willows

A row over a former diplomat’s garden shed has descended into an acrimonious war of words after a neighbouring countess compared the structure to the “Berlin Wall”.

Retired major John Dewdney-Herbert, 70, built the 10 feet wooden shed at the end of his new property as a place to work on his hobby of restoring antiques.

But the move provoked a storm of protest from his neighbours in the Dorset town of Sherborne who complained that their light had been blocked and the view spoilt.

A retrospective planning application has now been entered to West Dorset Council.

It has received six letters of complaint, and an objection from Sherborne Town Council.

Local councillor Katherine Pike said: “It is very bleak looking – monolithic if you like.

“It is selfish and unneighbourly. It’s no use them whining that people haven’t been welcoming when they have spoilt their lives.

“If they had put in a planning application before the shed was put up we would have objected, because the whole thing is just appalling for the people next door.”

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