Police officer raises safety fear over 'too tall' Knowle wall

The replacement wall is taller and wider than original planning permission allows for, the committee heard

A replacement wall built higher than planners approved could cause a fatal accident, a police officer has claimed.

Bristol neighbourhood Inspector Stephanie McKenna said she had concerns about the height of the wall in Talbot Road, Knowle, obscuring drivers' view.

Neighbours claimed its height obscured their view when pulling out from their driveway onto a busy junction.

Bristol city councillors have yet to decide whether to grant retrospective permission for the wall.

A Development Control Committee meeting on Wednesday heard that applicant Edward Bech had demolished the original wall and rebuilt one that was more than 2 metres (6 ft 5ins) high in its place.

It is both taller and wider than the original wall and runs alongside a driveway to three garages, the meeting heard.

Neighbours claimed it had rendered their garage unusable because it had reduced the width of the road, wiping £25,000 off the value of their house.

They also said that reducing the visibility made it dangerous for cars to pull out on to the busy road and left pedestrians at risk because they would not be able to easily see a car coming down the driveway.

Electronic gate alert

Neighbours Joe Woodhouse and Sarah Trevor said Land Registry documents confirmed they owned the land the wall was located on, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) reported.

This was disputed by planning enforcement team manager Nigel Butler who told councillors there was "no reason to believe" Mr Bech did not own all the land included in the plans.

• New planning permission tax to be debated

• Call for holiday lets to need planning permission

• Community regeneration plan receives £7m

Councillors were told the wall needed to be lowered by 60cm (24 inches) to improve visibility.

Knowle ward councillor Gary Hopkins compared the site to "Baghdad compound" on "a very busy road with a very vicious S-bend close by".

Despite this, the council's planning officers recommended approval after ruling the access was safe.

This was in part because the whirring sound of the electric gate would alert passing pedestrians that a car was coming, LDRS said.

They said even though the wall was bigger than approved in 2018, it remained policy compliant.

Development control committee member Chris Windows told the meeting: "I've been sitting on these committees for a number of years and I don't think I've ever heard such a crazy, mixed-up mess."

Councillor Andrew Brown was not convinced there were grounds for refusing the application but was worried about the message giving planning consent would send to developers - encouraging them to build something "completely over scale" and then apply for retrospective approval.

Councillor Guy Poultney said: "I cannot recall ever ever having a police officer, let alone an inspector, write to a planning committee to say 'I am worried that this is unsafe'."

Members have voted to visit the site before making their decision.