Is it too risky to buy an extended house with no planning permission?
Q We have been told the rear extension of the house we are buying lacks planning permission and building regulations approval. Is it too risky to go ahead with the purchase? A A number of different time limits apply to local authority action for breaches of planning or building control. Under section 171B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 a council usually has four years to take planning enforcement action involving unauthorised building works, and ten years to act where there are other breaches of planning controls. Prosecutions for breach of planning controls under section 35 of the Building Act 1984 may only be brought within two years of the work being completed, and section 36 planning contravention notices can only be given…
Source:The Times
June 13, 2019 23:08 UTC
This week’s prime properties in Essex, East Sussex and Gwynedd
Rural spotGreat Henny, EssexWhat you get The interior of this classic 1770s farmhouse features an exposed timber frame, lead windows and brick inglenook fireplaces. The three-acre grounds include a one-bedroom cottage, a studio, two barns, a swimming pool and a tennis court. The main house has five bedrooms, two reception rooms, a kitchen/breakfast room and two bathrooms. In the Stour Valley on the Essex-Suffolk border, three miles south of Sudbury. Upside It’s in a hidden-away rural spot and has country-club facilities.
Source:The Times
June 13, 2019 23:07 UTC
Cricket World Cup: Mark Wood may not be risked in England’s showdown with West Indies
Wood has struggled with injury and may be given time to recuperate PAUL CHILDS/ACTION IMAGESMark Wood is a doubt for England’s crucial World Cup match against West Indies at Southampton today. England were forced to train indoors again yesterday because of rain and Wood has been unable to test the joint before England’s fourth game of the tournament. “We haven’t bowled for a few days so it depends how he feels when he bowls,” Eoin Morgan, the captain, said. “It’s just soreness, not an injury. But, with all fast bowlers you have to…
Source:The Times
June 13, 2019 23:07 UTC
Who Should Get to Stay in the UK? review — the faces behind the immigration statistics
Who Should Get to Stay in the UK? BBC Two★★★★☆Death Row: Countdown to ExecutionITV★★★☆☆I vaguely expected Who Should Get to Stay in the UK? to show us the Home Office dispensing stony judgments from on high and distressed people being shown the door. Thus far, slow bureaucracy aside, the UK was looking pretty fair. Rashed, 30, had come from Bangladesh on a student visa, but six months in was found to have aggressive Crohn’s disease.
Source:The Times
June 13, 2019 23:07 UTC
Travellers suffer as wettest ever June looms
It will come as no surprise to those drenched in recent downpours that this month could be one of the wettest Junes on record. The bookmaker Coral makes it odds-on at 1-2 for a record amount of rainfall. Yesterday drivers were rescued from cars stranded in floodwater and commuters abandoned travel plans because of road and rail closures. According to the Met Office the UK’s wettest June was in 2012, when an average of 149mm of rain fell. The soggiest part of the country yesterday was Chillingham…
Source:The Times
June 13, 2019 23:07 UTC
Links to Saudi state could trigger newspaper inquiry
Evgeny Lebedev controls the Evening Standard, but 30 per cent is now held by companies controlled by a Saudi investor Dominic Lipinski/PAThe culture secretary is minded to investigate the sale of 30 per cent stakes in the Evening Standard and Independent to an investor with “strong links” to the Saudi Arabian state. Yesterday Jeremy Wright, 46, said that he was inclined to issue an intervention notice on public interest grounds into two deals that gave companies controlled by Mohamed Abuljadayel, a Saudi investor, a large minority holding in the publishers. The Evening Standard, edited by George Osborne, is controlled by Evgeny Lebedev, 39, son of the Russian businessman Alexander Lebedev. In 2017 Mr Abuljadayel acquired his holding in Independent Digital News and Media and soon after invested in the Evening Standard. In a letter to Lebedev Holdings Limited Mr Wright raised concerns over the “lack of…
Source:The Times
June 13, 2019 23:07 UTC
Caitlin Moran’s Celebrity Watch: Lorraine Kelly nudges us towards the apocalypse
10 DOWN Melania TrumpA week after the Donald Trump state visit, details about the world’s most politically charged sleepover are still emerging. We learnt that the Queen’s gift to Trump was a first edition of Winston Churchill’s The Second World War, a gift largely regarded as “high-grade trolling”, given Trump’s air of “non-bookery”. Melania Trump at Buckingham Palace GETTY IMAGESThe first lady was apparently given “a specially commissioned silver box with an enamel lid featuring roses, thistles and shamrocks, as seen on the ceiling of the Palace’s music room”. For those wondering why one would ever give a present that would remind the giftee of a certain ceiling, CW would suggest that if your guest spends a huge amount of her time rolling her eyes at her husband’s activities, while silently…
Source:The Times
June 13, 2019 23:07 UTC
Drastic Dave makes a song and dance for charity
Mike Coupe, the Sainsbury’s chief executive famous for his rendition of We’re in the Money, is not the only grocery boss who is a closet entertainer. Step forward Dave Lewis, chief executive of Tesco. At yesterday’s annual meeting in Welwyn Garden City, Drastic Dave revealed that he is planning to put on his disco shoes to raise money for charity. “In about four weeks’ time, myself and a number of Tesco colleagues, with our customers and suppliers, are going to try to break the Guinness world record for the longest consecutive dance,” he told shareholders. “Which is ever so slightly scary when you’ve got two left feet.”Camelot’s eye on prizeThe bidding for the next National Lottery licence does not start in earnest until…
Source:The Times
June 13, 2019 23:07 UTC
Activist gets Callaway Golf out of the rough
Investors piled into Callaway Golf after a New York activist investor disclosed a 9.2 per cent stake in the company worth about $136.4 million. Jana Partners, the hedge fund founded in 2001 by Barry Rosenstein, disclosed the holding in a regulatory filing, calling Callaway “undervalued” and an “attractive investment opportunity”. Callaway Golf was founded in 1982 by the late Ely Callaway and sells golf clubs and balls as well as clothing and footwear. Shares in the company, which have been under pressure since its $476 million acquisition this year of the Jack Wolfskin clothing brand, bounced back on news of the stake, closing up 14.4 per cent, or $2.28, at $18.18, valuing it at $1.7 billion.
Source:The Times
June 13, 2019 23:07 UTC
London Bridge terrorist concerns were ‘consigned to virtual bin’, inquest hears
Khuram Butt was identified as an extremist but concerns were not passed to relevant teams METROPOLITAN POLICE/PAMI5 and the police consigned calls from the public voicing concerns about the leader of the London Bridge attacks to a “virtual dustbin”, the victims’ inquest was told yesterday. Two calls were made identifying Khuram Butt, 27, as an extremist and a person “of concern” but were not passed to relevant investigating teams. The Old Bailey was told that an MI6 officer sent an email alert about one of the killers to the wrong address at MI5. The “administrative error” stopped the security service building a picture of the emerging terrorist cell, one of its senior officials said as he gave evidence from behind a curtain. Dominic Adamson, for the family of Xavier Thomas, 45, the first victim of the attacks, told the inquest it…
Source:The Times
June 13, 2019 23:07 UTC
Bonuses for women are 69% lower at HSBC unit
The bank says that it had fewer women in senior, better-paid jobs AlamyWomen working in HSBC’s British investment bank have been handed bonuses that are nearly 70 per cent lower than their male colleagues. HSBC employs just over 2,000 staff in its UK-based global banking and markets operations. The bonuses paid to women at the division were 69.3 per cent lower than for men on a median basis for the 12 months to April 5, according to gender pay gap data released by the bank. The median hourly pay gap at the business was 50.8 per cent. HSBC is Europe’s biggest lender and employs about 235,000 staff around the world.
Source:The Times
June 13, 2019 23:07 UTC
Playboy seeks a serious audience with return to intellectual past
The magazine changed since Marilyn Monroe was a covergirl and it ran Roald Dahl stories. Kate Moss was featured in 2014 GETTY IMAGES; PA; CBSIn its efforts to reach the modern man, Playboy offered photographs of naked women and muscular prose from literary heavyweights who were attracted by the idea of a journal in the vanguard of the sexual revolution. Macho writers such as Norman Mailer and Ian Fleming featured, as did Roald Dahl, but so did Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale. Playboy is now seeking to revive that tradition and remind its remaining readers of a time when it was considered a radical force in American life. Its latest issue, devoted to “gender and sexuality”, has an exploration of the #MeToo movement by a professor of gender politics, an activist discussing a new approach to feminism and a “symposium” featuring “four voices who champion a culture…
Source:The Times
June 13, 2019 23:07 UTC
Third name in four months for the breakaway MPs of Change UK
Change UK was forced to alter its name again yesterday, adopting its third identity in four months of existence. The flailing new party, which was formed by seven MPs who quit Labour in February, will now be called the Independent Group for Change. In a statement, it said it had agreed to change its name after being confronted with a legal challenge from the petition website Change.org. Before it registered as a party, the breakaway group, which consisted of 11 MPs at its peak, was known as the Independent Group. The MPs settled on the name Change UK and submitted registration papers ahead of the European elections in May.
Source:The Times
June 13, 2019 23:07 UTC
Bill Callahan: Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest review
★★★☆☆As Smog, Bill Callahan has for the past two decades made albums of peerless indie-folk torment and exquisite seriousness. Now that he is too busy dealing with childcare issues to stare into the pit of his soul, his first album in six years takes on a lighter, more pastoral tone, even poking fun at his troubadour image. “I sing for good listeners,” he claims on the slow, country-tinged Call Me Anything, “and tired dancers.” These 20 slow-paced songs prove a stretch, but they are poetic and melodious, a cover of the gospel standard Lonesome Valley fits into the reflective mood, and the whole thing rolls along in an appealingly unforced way. (Drag City)
Source:The Times
June 13, 2019 23:07 UTC
This week’s prime properties in Fife, Glasgow and Orkney
Artist’s retreatTayport, FifeWhat you get Kirkton Barns Farmhouse includes a photography studio with a kitchen in the garden, a separate artist’s studio and several outbuildings. The house has six bedrooms, four bathrooms, three reception rooms and a self-contained flat accessed through a courtyard. The walled garden looks out on to the rolling hills of Fife. Set in farmland two miles from Tayport, a popular commuter spot in the north of Fife close to Dundee (5.5 miles). Price Offers of more than £635,000Contact Savills, 0131 247 3738, savills.comThis property comes with a hidden study, two bedrooms and a barrel-vaulted brick ceilingTrendy mewsWest End, GlasgowWhat you get A barrel-vaulted brick ceiling in the living room of this mews makes…
Source:The Times
June 13, 2019 23:07 UTC