Patricia Harrison-Bright, who lives at The Coach House in Downs Road, West Stoke, has been in conflict with Chichester District Council's planning department for the past 18 months after installing UPVC windows at the property which it says is listed.

While the council said Mrs Harrison-Bright had breached its policies, Mrs Harrison-Bright and her supporters said she had contacted the council several times before starting the work to find out whether her property was listed.

The planning department wrote to her asking her to check and after being told there were no restrictions, she went ahead and spent £10,000 having the windows installed.

Last week council officers sought to bring enforcement action against Mrs Harrison-Bright but councillors on the north development control committee voted against the recommendation, deciding to take no further action.

They believe the situation was created as a result of a council mistake.

The committee was told The Coach House was one of several buildings in the grounds of Grade II listed Woodend, which was built circa 1800 by Lord George Lennox.

While Woodend is included in the council's listed buildings register, The Coach House is not, but is deemed listed by 'virtue of it being in the curtilage of a listed building'.

In a report to the committee, councillors were told Mrs Harrison-Bright had been told to submit listed-building consent following a site visit after complaints were received about the windows.

The committee also heard an ombudsman had investigated the issue.

While no maladministration was found against the council, a report concluded it needed to improve its system to help identify curtilage properties.

The ombudsman said: "I can confirm I did conclude the council had been at fault in providing misleading information to members of the public about the status of the property concerned."

Sir Keith Bright, Mrs Harrison-Bright's representative at the meeting, said: "She doesn't want to blame anybody but wants to find a solution to this problem.

"She is quite happy any changes in future will come under the new policies."

Cllr Julie Tassell said the windows were 'inoffensive' and disagreed with enforcement action.

"Mrs Harrison-Bright has become more and more ill and it has been very stressful for her – she is just trying to keep warm and keep her costs down.

"In a time of economic crisis when we are trying to constrict budgets, the council will not look good spending time pursuing her.

"It's still not completely clear this is a listed building as a neighbour didn't know it was listed either. We need to resolve this and stop harassing an old lady."

Cllr Andrew Shaxson said that it was 'utterly wrong' to take enforcement action:

He said: "She was given information it was alright to put in double-glazed units. To suddenly turn around and say it is a listed building – we shouldn't do it. Perhaps we should be saying we should be paying for replacement windows."

He said the problem of curtilage properties should be acknowledged.

Following the decision, Sir Keith Bright said he was disappointed the council still would not admit it had made a mistake and said the situation had been 'Kafkaesque'.


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