Blessed Planners Demand Flammable Cladding

A home owner in Mehstead has been told to rip the cladding off his new self-catering holiday property because it can’t catch fire and is too long-lasting to be sustainable.

Blessed Officers told members last week that the fake timber was a pale imitation of the real thing. “The local building vernacular of the Broads features dilapidated and rotting structures requiring constant maintenance” said one, “and their gradual decay complements our policy of managed decline.”

“The use of materials which will still be around in 20 years is considered inappropriate”, the Blessed Spokesperson continued. “Our policy that materials must be ‘high quality and sustainable’ obviously means ‘must rot and fall apart quickly’, and we’re confident that the planning appeal inspector will agree - despite us having already lost an appeal on uPVC windows last year.”

Officers went on to say that they’d looked at the price of renting out the house and that the £13,000 cost of replacing the cladding would easily be funded by next summer’s income, in fact by their reckoning the building will already have paid for itself by then. [The same officers have worked out the business case for building the AxleBridge Visitor Centre].

Blessed opinions were divided. “You can’t even see the cladding from the river, it’s 75 metres away” pointed out voice of reason Tommy Vicarson, but was pooh-poohed by Blessed Vice Chairman Dick Bilson. “You don’t even own a boat” he said. “I’ve got a boat and I can see the difference with my eyes shut. Anyway, the owner can obviously afford to replace the cladding, it will only cost the price of a round of drinks in a Mongolian brothel”. 

Blessed Chair Temper Turtle said that if the Authority allowed the cladding to stay then the Broads would descend into “planarchy”, where giant ‘temporary’ structures could still remain after 3 years without enforcement action, or huge visitor centres could be erected on riverside farmland against every conceivable policy.  Bilson agreed. “We can’t have the integrity of our planning department compromised” he said, with a straight face. 

Henna Larson apologised for the Authority’s incompetence and advised the applicant to appeal. “It’s just bloody amateur hour here every time” she said, as her familiar nodded in agreement from the floor.