By Carmelo Garcia – Local Democracy Reporter
A vehicle workshop, which has been likened to an oil tanker beached in someone’s garden, may have to be torn down after it was built without the correct planning permission.
Tewkesbury Borough Council has rejected Shire Cars Ltd’s retrospective plans to demolish a former garage building and build a new workshop and office in Shurdington Road, Shurdington.
Plans for the site were submitted after work was completed and they were due to be decided last month. But councillors deferred making a decision to allow the applicant to submit revised plans.
However, officers told the planning committee on October 20 that they had refused to do so and instead requested the plans proceed as they were.
Neighbour Mark Welsh said the development was “much too big and much too close” to his home. He told the meeting life at his property has been “grim, buried in the shadow of this ugly building”.
Mr Welsh also said they have always been open to collaborate on a well-designed mutually beneficial development up to and including selling their home.
He said they wouldn’t want their neighbour’s business to be unduly affected but they want their home back.
He said: “At the September meeting my daughter said this development was like an oil tanker beached in the garden.
“I think it’s perhaps more like a runaway train that somehow has been too big to stop.
“It started out absurdly large for its site and has grown bigger with every breach of permission.
“We’ve had to watch the old building be demolished, rather than extended, we watched the ground levels rise and steel walls shoot up beyond their remit.
“And the roof, unexpectedly, changed shape. Every step of which blocked out more and more of our light.”
He went on to say a “surprise” car wash appeared on the boundary in 2024 and then work continued despite reportedly having been advised to cease in September and October 2025.
“For more than a year they have carried on regardless, trading through deferral after deferral,” he claimed.
“Surely now is the time to call a halt and say, stop. No you are not free to flout the rules, you are not free to ruin neighbouring properties with inconsiderate development.”
Oliver Rider, the applicant’s agent, told the meeting the way the application had been dealt with from the beginning had been an “absolute car crash”.
He said Shire Cars applied for permission to extend the premises in 2022 which was approved by the council.
He said in building the scheme “some minor changes were made” and a revised application lodged.
Mr Rider claimed they negotiated revised plans with the officers which resulted in an approval recommendation at the planning committee meeting in May.
However, the plans were pulled and it reappeared in September but with a recommendation for refusal “without any explanation”.
He said he addressed councillors last month and raised serious concerns over how the application had been presented to them.
He said the concerns were supported by legal advice advising the papers did not provide a proper justification for the change in the recommendation.
“As your papers confirm, the applicant has approached the resolution in a constructive manner, making significant efforts to find a solution, having genuinely sought to address concerns regarding residential immunity,” he said.
“You’ve been sent the table of revised plans and the modifications are summarised in your updated report.
“Those revisions make major reductions in the size of built form to that previously approved in 2022.
“Yet despite your resolution and the applicant’s compromises and the neighbours’ desire to find a mutually acceptable scheme, your committee report still essentially just says no.”
He said refusing the plans would lead to a “lengthy, costly appeal, as well as a legal challenge”.
“The end result may well be that the development is approved as built.
“That’s not a threat, it’s a reality.”
Planning officers said the building’s proposed mass, height and proximity to the boundary dominates the southern and western sides of the home next door.
Its design was also described as having an “overbearing impact” and led to a loss of light in the rooms in the property next door, they said, and would give rise to actual permanent harm to the living conditions of the neighbouring dwelling.
The officers also explained that the latest application arose after a compliance investigation after the demolition of the previous building.
“The applicant was advised that the development did not benefit from a valid planning permission with officers formally confirming in October 2025 that the works were unauthorised and should cease,” the officer told the meeting.
“Despite these warnings, the applicant continued construction and submitted a retrospective application while work remained ongoing.
“As the development continued after clear notification, it was unauthorised and being carried out at the applicant’s own risk, the breach is considered intentional.”
During the debate, councillor Matt Dimond-Brown (G, Tewkesbury South) said the council has to say “people cannot play fast and loose with permissions and just go ahead and throw up whatever it is they like and then ask for forgiveness”.
He also said it was regrettable that residential amenity had not been adequately assessed in 2022/23.
“Its self-evident residential amenity has been highly impacted.”
Councillor Iain Yates (LD, Churchdown Brookfield with Hucclecote), who proposed the recommendation, highlighted the overbearing impact on the neighbouring property.
The committee ultimately voted unanimously to refuse permission.