South Wales Evening Post - 2 August 2006
Five people in Gower have this year been banned from using their garage as living accommodation, it has emerged. The news comes just days after former Swansea Council boss Tim Thorogood was told he could keep his garage, which includes a first- floor living room and bedroom.
One councillor now fears residents in Gower will question whether Mr Thorogood has been given preferential treatment.
Swansea Council has granted permission for at least five similar garages in the Gower Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty during the past 12 months.
But in each case the owners have been told they cannot use the garages as living space.
Veronica Webster and her husband were granted permission for a garage at their home in Bishopston in March.
She said: "I would be very impressed if anyone was able to live in ours.
"We have got a garage with the front half for the car and the rear part as a workshop for my husband. It is much too small for anything else.
"However, Mr Thorogood has been reassured he will be able to use his six-metre highl garage for living accommodation, provided it cannot be used as a self-contained flat.
As part of the deal to persuade planners to back changes, a kitchen that had been fitted in the garage has been removed.
Pennard ward councillor Margaret Smith, who voted against allowing Mr Thorogood to keep the unauthorised changes, said: "I find it an irony that the planners did not choose to put this condition on Mr Thorogood's garage in the first place.
"I hate to be thought of as a suspicious person, but I think we need to pre-empt what people might do.
"It looks as if the planners have done it for five of these cases, but not in this one.
"People are going to ask what the difference is and I think they are perfectly entitled to ask that question."
