Council<\/a> to reject Mr Bray’s application to vary the original approved plans.<\/p>\nShe said: \u201cThis isn’t a Juliet balcony, it is an actual balcony and that isn’t what he has planning permission for.<\/p>\n
\u201cA Juliet balcony is a guarded opening: flush with the building face and doors opening inwards, no standing area and no ability to step out or remain outside.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt causes no greater overlooking than the door opening itself: a person passing an opening gains a fleeting, incidental view.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat has been built is a violation of the planning permission.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Michele](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/BNPS_AmazonMillionaireRow_13.jpeg\")
Michele Venton made a small fortune when she sold her Amazon business (Bournemouth Echo\/BNPS)<\/p>\n
She went on: \u201cThe doors open outwards and there is a usable standing platform at roof level. That platform can be occupied and, as I have observed, is being occupied.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe platform sits approximately 10 metres from my boundary and directly faces both the principal seating area of my rear garden and bedroom windows at the rear of my property.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt permits a person to stand outside at elevated level and dwell there, looking down into my garden and across at my bedroom windows for sustained periods.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is is allowed we will be very conscious that somebody maybe overlooking us every time we have a barbecue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her neighbour Ms Crake said: \u201cThe proposal should be assessed as an accessible roof terrace, not a Juliet balcony.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe issue can be resolved by reinstating the approved design: inward-opening doors and flush Juliet guarding. This would remove the harm and return the development to what was originally approved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Bray, who lives with wife Melanie, bought the bungalow six years ago and got planning permission to extend it.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/BNPS_AmazonMillionaireRow_19.jpeg\")
The view of Michele Venton’s house (centre) from Ian Bray’s French doors (BNPS)<\/p>\n
He said their plan was always to have the French doors opening outwards but claims their architect drew it wrong on the plans and he had not noticed.<\/p>\n
He only knew there was a problem when one of the neighbours complained to the council and a planning officer told him he would need to apply for permission for the change.<\/p>\n
Mr Bray, who was also a retired university lecturer, said: \u201cNumber 84 (the Ventons\u2019 home) completely demolished and rebuilt bigger with their rear window overlooking us.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s going to be a degree of mutual overlooking just because of the road layout, but we can’t even see their gardens.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just a mistake on the drawings. I didn’t do the plans, I paid an architect to do them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had two building inspectors come out and neither of them noticed the doors were different from the plans either.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe only knew it was a problem when I was working on the balustrade – we wanted something to block it for safety because we have grandchildren – and one of the neighbours complained to the council that we were using the flat roof as a balcony.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lady from the planning department came out and she said ‘it looks fine to me’ and ‘you can hardly hold a party on that’.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut when she went back and looked at the plans she said I would have to apply for a variation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s only a square metre, you could barely fit a chair on it. It’s just big enough to open the doors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe difference is negligible. It seems a nonsense to me. If they do bizarrely turn it down I will appeal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mrs Bray, 67, a retired finance administrator, added: \u201cAn error was made on the plans. If they said no and we had to have the doors going in we would have to completely take the doors out and fit new ones. It would probably cost about \u00a31,000 for what was a stupid error.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is such a small area, it doesn’t even come beyond the original roof line. But if we have to have the doors going in it will impact the bedroom and the space inside.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":743284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-743283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=743283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/743284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=743283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=743283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=743283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Ian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/BNPS_AmazonMillionaireRow_03.jpeg\")
Ian Bray’s home in Christchurch, Dorset (BNPS)<\/p>\n