Planning Permission Needed?

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To cut a long story short, my small swimming pool's drain discharges into the motorway drainage ditch next to my fence line. It is only used to pump off excess water, so it does not discharge very often.

It has been like that since the pool was installed in 1976. The ditch is inspected and cleared every ten years by the Highways Agency's men - previously contractors or employees, I have no idea - so there have been two inspections since we moved in 1994. There has never been any problem with the drain.

This year, Carillion have conducted the inspection, and their merry men will be along in due course to do any necessary clearance and maintenance. Enter their rep, Prodnose I. Jobsworth, who has written to tell me that the drain is causing erosion damage to the ditch (totally untrue, and I have the pictures to prove it), and unless I have planning permission (I have no doubt I have not) their crew will remove it when they do the maintenance.

I know that in relation to planning permission for house extensions and the like, anything that has been there for twenty years is exempt. Does anyone know whether that might/would also apply in this case?
 
Got a photo - I can't reconcile swimming pool and motorway in the same sentence :dk:.
 
He's talking nonsense if the pool has been there since 1976. Anyway...seek a meeting and talk it through...always the best way.
 
Planning wise, I don't think they can touch you for anything over 4 years old.
However, you don't want them removing your drain.
Request a meeting with jobsworth, point out how long the drain has been there and your evidence that it is not doing harm.
If that doesn't work, consult a solicitor.
 
Probably best to talk to one of your local council's planning department development control team members first. That way you will know where you stand planning wise before you confront Jobsworth. If you are worried that talking to a local council officer might stir up more bureaucratic bother, take a look at the Royal Town Planning Institute's Planning Aid pages at rtpi.org.uk. It's a free and useful service for providing professional, impartial planning advice. Good luck.
 
You should be alright given the date of installation but, as mentioned above the regs have differed slightly.

I'd contact the local council and EA to see where you stand, at the most I'd expect Carillion having to cough up a bill if it's to be either removed or altered to suit.

Carillion seem to have the most jobsworth idiots of any firm I've had to deal with I must say
 
Well why not just have a soak away dug 1 metre square and a metre deep right at the edge of your property,that will take all the overflow from your swimming pool,and then no council,solicitors or litigation,not sure why all those years ago people thought it right to run a drain onto a different property.
 
A lot of it is to do with weyher you will change what us visible from the road. We had to consider this when we extended.
 
Well why not just have a soak away dug 1 metre square and a metre deep right at the edge of your property,that will take all the overflow from your swimming pool,and then no council,solicitors or litigation,not sure why all those years ago people thought it right to run a drain onto a different property.

In principle a swimming pool drain could be used to drain the whole thing. A soakaway would not cut it.

As others have said, if it dates back that far you would now have deemed consent. I'm not sure that drainage would not fall under some other legislation though.
 
I think this is about discharge of water into a water course. Nowadays permission is required but as has been said if it has been in place for 40 years then approval may be implied.
Is the pool treated and filtered in which case should it be treated as foul water and discharge into a foul drain.
 
Thank you, one and all. Very useful; I knew there would be some on here who would know. I did a little reading last night on the basis of Grober's post, and Geraldrobins has confirmed my conclusion.

Yes, under the latest regs it should discharge into the foul drain, and at present it discharges into the motorway surface water drain. B****R! It looks as though it will have to be rerouted. I do wish it hadn't been spotted; it's been OK for forty years, but I suppose it was inevitable that sooner or later it would come to light.
 
That's going to be pretty awkward for rural pool owners.

My last property had its own Klargester for sewage and you can't put pool water through that, so it looks like settling tanks, de-chlorination and de-sludging would be required to officially deal with backwash and lowering waters.
 
I am not sure if this helps or not? But based on my fairly recent experience here goes:

We had a "soak away" Cesspit. This was a 10 meter deep brick lined well shaft, sunk into our front garden and covered with a large brick and metal manhole. The top of the shaft, that was one meter out of the ground, collapsed into the main shaft, blocking the outfall from the house and allowing it to overflow into the garden.

Drainage company(s) said that current regs meant that they could not simply repair the top without the environmental health and building reg's inspectors attending and issuing the correct certs?

Long story short!! They refused permission and we had to have the cesspit infilled and a Klargester installed @ £30k to dig out, remove spoil, concrete base, new tank, infill with shingle, crane to lift over the telephone and power wires etc.

The reason for not issuing a cert to repair? We were told "current regs" meant that the porosity of the surrounding land was not up to standards for a soakaway. This despite all the neighbouring properties having soakaways. They installed porosity meters for two weeks to measure soakaway and used coloured dye.

If it is here today then all good. If it gets investigated? then maybe not so good. We ended up with an insurance claim. Our insurers challenged the rationale, but lost. They attempted to recover costs from the the previous owner of the house who had "not declared that he had not correctly" maintained the soakaway. They lost on a technicality.

When they put in the Klargester, we had to have the grey water drains (already in situ) diverted into the Klargester. Now all grey waste goes into it and we have to pay to have it emptied every couple of months.
 
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All new soakaways have to be sized by testing the ground permeability and the volume of water going into it.
 

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