Moving tank from planning area

A house opposite us is in planning correction department in coucil. They haven't complied with much with planning but we didn't complain as explained here previously anything for a quiet life. BUT now I see they are proposing to change the location of the tank. From day one we were afraid of our water supply becoming tainted and this proposed mover takes the tank nearer again to our well.

Should we be getting a professional involved to take this up with council. At this stage I'm on last legs in work so afriad to involve a professional at cost when I'm not sure i'll be working at christmas but then we need to protect our own sites resources.

Can this be changed after planning granted.

If we wanted to take a complaint about how the whole planning issue was handled by council - how do we go about that.

If you haven't brought your concerns to the attention of the council you cannot hold the Council to account for not taking on board your concerns.
If the development is not in compliance with Council guidelines you can raise the matter through several channels.

These would include meetings with
- the planning officer
- the planning enforcement section
- the environmental services section

In these meetings you could put forward your concerns - all at no cost to you.
If you don't know the quality of water you already have, you cannot quantify the reduction in quality due to your neighbour's development.
Thus, you need a baseline study of your water quality - this should have been done before any development occurred on the adjoining lands - you may have done this already to "prove" your well.

Hope this helps.


ONQ

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All advice on AAM is remote from the situation and cannot be relied upon as a defence or support - in and of itself - should legal action be taken.
Competent legal and building professionals should be asked to advise in Real Life with rights to inspect and issue reports on the matters at hand.

Not been familar with the facts of your situation, and just adding to the above post, all I would say is the Local Authority can really only grant permission for a tank location when their own environmental section are happy it complies with E.P.A. guidelines in relation to distances to water sources, boundaries, etc. Of course most importantly do not let the 5 week period that you have to make an observation pass without making a submission to the L.A. detailing your concerns. More than lightly your neighbour has submitted his application and is showing distances from the new tank meeting all E.P.A. guidelines, but you would want to check he has shown your well, tank, etc, in the proper location on his site layout plan,

mummol
Some movement in the location of the tank itself is may not be of major concern if they are still mantaining the required distances from boundaries, structures and watercourses.
Bear in mind that all testing carried out on the site to show compliance with the EPA regulations is to do with the suitability of the percolation areas, and not the tank.
Any tank should be a self contained, sealed unit which simply treats the effluent and passes it on to the percolation areas. It should not leak. The percolation areas are where the treated effluent recieves some more treatment before passing down into the ground (and eventually the groundwater).
If your neighbours are moving the percolation areas to a totally different area of the site, this can cause problems as the undersoil condititions can vary greatly even over a small site.
In my opinion, a considerable alteration to the location of the percolation areas should result in new site suitability tests being required.
Two other things to watch are:
1. Did they receive planning permission for a proprietary effluent treatment system and are they trying to put in a 'normal' tank instead? This would not be in compliance with their permission.
2. Were they asked to enter into a service agreement with the supplier of the tank with regard to annual service? If so they should have submitted a copy of this agreement to the Planning Authority and this can be checked.


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Just to note that the position of the tank is also critical in terms of minimum distance from the house.

This page seems to contain the current links -
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Figure 13 shown on P.37 in the link below refers -
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See also Table 4 on P. 19 of the above link
Septic Tank - minimum separation distances in metres from -

10M - Watercourse/stream
10M - Wells, Springs
50M - Lake
7M - Any Dwelling
3M - Site Boundary
4M - Road
4M Slope breaks/cuts


For PERCOLATION AREAS the distances are as follows (difference noted in bold) -

10M - Watercourse/stream
30M - Wells, Springs
50M - Lake
10M - Any Dwelling
3M - Site Boundary
4M - Road
4M Slope breaks/cuts


Re the sections on Wells/Spings above, the following is noted -

* This applies to wells down-gradient or where flow direction is unknown. For more information on wells alongside or up-gradient consult DELG/EPA/GSI ground water protection scheme - see note 1.
Note - 1 Department of Environment and Local Government, Environmental Protection Agency, Geological Survey of Ireland 2000. Groundwater Protection Responses for On-site Systems for Single Houses.


So it would appear that septic tanks are location sensitive, if perhaps not quite so much as percolation areas.
The information posted here rely on other sources, the status of which cannot be confirmed.
Always check with the local authority regarding current requirements.


ONQ

[broken link removed]

All advice on AAM is remote from the situation and cannot be relied upon as a defence or support - in and of itself - should legal action be taken.
Competent legal and building professionals should be asked to advise in Real Life with rights to inspect and issue reports on the matters at hand.

Thanks for all the informative replies. We had done an observation on preliminary planning going all the way to an bp. They got planning with some strict conditions. But then in a pure paddywackery way proceeded to completely ignore them.

They built a garage as a granny flat to live in while building their home even though an bp said the garage wasn't to be used as a domestic or commercial unit. Its bigger, higher, in wrong place. However the tank isn't to the standard and in another place. They seem to have come to the councils attention and are now stuck in compliance. From the file it appears they havent paid levies so I wonder was that the spur that moved the council to act? They applied for retention on changes but retention made no mention of septic tank so we made no observation as we have had some issues with these people before which resulted in a physical assault on a family member nor when it came to it was I bitchy enough to put a big financial burden on them by making what they spend their cash on unuseble. But last fri another request about tank moving turned up on compliance form so I was in a panic over the fact that we might have been niave about not doing an observation. However on Monday they were refused retention on a number of issues. So initial panic has subsided.

We've had a very tough year ourselves. Our third little one was premature, he was very gravely last february and had an operation. All is well now. My job is shakey but at this stage I'm fed up trying to second guess whats going on across the road. I just wish they'd stick to planning especially on tank and get on with it. Stomach churns at thoughts of poisonous neighbour relations for years to come but not much we can do about that and I'll just have to develop a harder neck.

Again thanks for the informative replies.

Good to hear your little one has pulled through.
I know from reading your stuff she's in good hands - keep gong!

Re the neighbours, make sure the refusal is followed up and they don't try to get out of it on a hardship plea.
Too many people out there trading on other people's misery or adding to it then pleading inability to pay for their transgressions.


ONQ

[broken link removed]

All advice on AAM is remote from the situation and cannot be relied upon as a defence or support - in and of itself - should legal action be taken.
Competent legal and building professionals should be asked to advise in Real Life with rights to inspect and issue reports on the matters at hand.