A obstinate family, who essentially constructed a second home on their driveway, is adamant about keeping it.
We’re all for a little bit of do-it-yourself around the house, but getting permission to build a garage and then creating a little two-story dwelling could be taking the p**s.
The Highgate, Birmingham, residents are adamant about maintaining the house, and to be fair, it does have a good appearance.
Everything began in 2019 when the family received approval to construct a garage on their driveway.
The family filed an appeal, claiming that the “minor discrepancies” between the structure that was allowed and the one they erected were the only ones present.
Thomas Shields, a planning inspector, seemed unfazed, stating that the single-story detached garage with a footprint of 5.3 x 4.6 m and a height of 3.6 m is depicted in the authorized drawings for the garage.
“It was also shown having a standard garage door to the front and no windows on any elevation.”
“In comparison with the approved garage, the appeal building has a footprint of approximately 8.7m x 4.7m and a height of 5.3m”
“Consequently, it is substantially larger than the approved building. It is not a minor difference.”
To be fair to the family, it does look extremely great, but just because something looks nice doesn’t mean the council likes it, and they were given until July of this year to demolish the entire structure.
The astute among you will observe, however, that if they had torn the structure down, we wouldn’t be writing this narrative.
The clever little house’s walls would sing the hit song “I’m still standing” by Elton John if they could talk.
The family doesn’t appear to care however, as one member of the household told The Sun: “Until the council gets in direct contact with us to tell us to demolish it, what we’re going to say to everyone is ‘f**k you because we’re going to keep it. And that’s that.”
“No one around here has a problem with it. All the neighbours think it looks nice. It was a garage, we turned into a gym during Covid.”
“The funny thing is when the council came to inspect it he saw all the gym equipment in there.”
“There are punch bags in there, there are other gym machines.”
We wonder if they are offering gym memberships, but hey, at least it’s being put to good use.