Pendle: Chimney demolished without permission and should be rebuilt

The house, 3 Woodside Street, and surrounding streets are part of Nelson’s official Whitefield conservation area.

But the chimney’s unauthorised demolition has harmed the area’s visual appeal, planning officers say, and it should be rebuilt.

Chimneys, roofscapes and other features of terraces there are classed as especially important. Traditional terraced streets, typically running in parallel with symmetrical roof-lines and fronts, are seen as visually attractive, characteristic of Lancashire Pennine towns and worth protecting.

Property owner Raja Raheel Munawar, of Hibson Road in Nelson, has submitted a demolition planning application to Pendle Council.  It seeks permission to knock down the chimney at 3 Woodside Terrace.  But the chimney has already been demolished, a planning report states.

Pendle planning officers are urging councillors to refuse the application and call for the chimney to be rebuilt. They say planning policy and the conservation area aim to keep original appearances and dimensions of terraces, unless there are strong reasons to change them.

A planning application on behalf of the property owner was submitted to Pendle Council in November 2022. It stated the chimney was demolished between October and November last year.;

It adds:  "The work was carried-out by the tenant without the knowledge or permission of the property owner. The dates given are therefore approximate dates.”

Under a section called Explanation for Proposed Demolition Work, the application form asks why is it necessary to demolish all or part of the building or structure?

The written answer given is: "As the tenant carried out the work this cannot be answered. The tenant has vacated the property and this is when it was found out that the work had been carried out

Pendle Council’s new Development Management Committee will look at the issues this week.

A committee report states: “The development [demolition] would result in the loss of a chimney of a property in the Whitefield conservation area, contrary to guidance . This could set a precedent for the further loss of chimneys in the area and resulting harm to the roof-scape.”

It adds: “The site is a mid-terraced dwelling adjacent to the M65 motorway in the Whitefield conservation area. The proposal is for the removal of the internal and external elements of the chimney.

“The terraced row is characterised by chimneys on each of the roofs of the properties which have a front-to-back alignment and five clay pots sitting on top of the stack. At the time of the site visit, the works had already been undertaken.”

Regarding chimneys, it states: “The guidance is that chimney stacks and pots should always be retained. Where they have been capped-off or truncated, they should wherever possible be reinstated to their original profile.

“The council’s conservation area planning document sets-out the importance of chimneys as a feature in the roof-scape of Victorian terraced properties. Given that the remainder of the row has the chimney stack and pots intact, the removal here creates an imbalance in the terrace’s uniformity.

“Removal of the chimney has a significant impact upon the area’s visual amenity. It would result in harm to the character and appearance

of the conservation area. ”

Pendle councillors are being advised that they should balance public benefits against any public harms from the chimney’s demolition. In this case, there would be no public benefit outweighing the visual harm from the chimney’s loss.

Before it was demolished, the chimney did not create a shadow or any other problem for anybody. It should be rebuilt, planning officers say.

The new development committee has been created in a Pendle Council shake-up including a debate about the role of Pendle’s four area committees in planning. The Woodside Street chimney application was referred from the Nelson, Brierfield & Reedley Area Committee.

Critics including Conservative councillors said area committees were sometimes making bad planning decisions, leading to inconsistency. This, in turn, left Pendle Council at risk of planning appeals and costs. They also said the area committee system was cumbersome and costly, and councillors  were vulnerable to pressure from local electors, applicants or businesses.

However, many Lib-Dem and Labour councillors defended area committees, saying their planning decisions were justified and local people’s input was essential.

The development committee meets at Nelson Town Hall on Tuesday, February 21.