North Coast Complaints

Programme three of Room With a View concentrates on the shores of the North Antrim Coast.The main concerns are the influx of "strangers" and double standards in planning regulations.

Rising house prices seem to be spiralling out of control in major cities in the UK. In Belfast you`d expect it be the case , but small rural towns in Northern Ireland?
Estate agents along the North Coast have reported huge increases in the simplest of dwellings,with prices of up to £250,000 not uncommon. One buyer confirmed a purchase of a £210,000 house over the phone from London, having never stepped foot in the property. This angers local people who simply can`t afford to buy their first time home in the village they grew up in.

Is this simply a case of the law of the jungle with the best homes going to the highest bidder, or should some sort of grading system be introduced to regulate the ratio between local and "outsider" property purchases?

Let us know what you think

Glenarm

Harbour Horrors

A few miles up the coast from Ballgalley lies the village of Glenarm, one of only 91 "conservation areas" in Northern Ireland.
Conservation - "The preservation and careful management of the environment and of natural resources" to use a dictionary term.

Some of the residents in Glenarm don`t feel this description is being upheld.

The harbour in the village is one of the main focal points and until 2001 it was in a bad state of repair, damaged and ugly.
Larne Borough Council totally reburbished the harbour with money from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and in the process added wooden jetties for boat users.

the harbour pre 2001

new refurbished harbour

the proposed amenity block would sit to the back left of the picture

A great step forward for the village ? Not for some locals, who feel the harbour and its now added value marina is only beneficial to holiday makers and daytrippers.

The final straw was a proposed plan to build an amenity block on the heritge listed qauyside.Its main purpose to provide facilties for the boat users.The local people felt that it was unnecessary and would be unsightly.More bad news was to come - an application to build apartments near to the quayside!

So what should the outcome be? Are we dealing with a progessive council or are we blighting heritage listed sites?

Back To Front

Still in Glenarm a case of double standards? A local resident moved into a grade two listed building which already had a two storey conversion at the rear. To suitably house his young family he applied to the planning office for another extension , on top of the second storey at the rear- Sorry, no way was the answer. Its a grade two listed building and the proposed new extension would not be "in keeping" with the surrounding homes.

So a design to build a roof garden at the rear above the second storey and house the required bedrooms desired "underground" was hatched ...and...accepted by the planning office.

At the same time the resident was told he could not fit standard double glazed windows to the front of his home and the windows must be the Georgian style six over six pane style.The thickness had to be the same as the single panes in these "normal" windows.
So the homeowner sourced a compnay in Wales who could manfacture double glazed units, as described above, to within the single paned remit. Again - "No sorry the reflection through a double glazed unit of any kind is too different to single paned ones"!
The house owner complied and installed, at extreme cost, the six paned style windows and fitted shutters on the inside to act as a kind of double glazing.

six over six pane windows

the roof garden at the rear

Fair enough you might say, rules is rules?Not if only yards down the road a new development of houses gets away with using designs and materials not "in keeping" with the surrounding area.

In this case the front of the building can`t be faulted , new build yes, but in the old style - great top marks.
However when we take a look at the rear of the property, it all starts to go downhill.

again six over six style windows

Hmmm.. not really in keeping

At the rear of this new property we have metal balconies and standard upvc windows.

You can argue that each case is looked at individually and that in the first example we are dealing with a grade two listed building, but both homes are in a conservation area and are very close to each other.

Is this double standards? Should the planning office not expect the rear of this new development to stick to the same strict guidelines as the homeowner in our first example?

Have your say - you`ll find contact details in the main Room With a View page.