Planning permission

is a minefield.
There is a story in this morning's paper which, if correct, is one of the worst possible examples of the mess our local planning laws are in.  
If it is correct then a new  house will be demolished. It will be demolished although it was approved on three separate occasions.  There is nothing wrong with the house - but the neighbours don't like it. They say it intrudes on their privacy - despite measures being put in place to screen them.
The editor of the paper, who wrote the story, has suggested that the council should be paying for the mess to be cleaned up. They approved the building through the relevant department.
I am inclined to agree.
I went to see someone recently. She showed me the foundations which had been poured for the new house being built next door. In order to do this their own fence had been taken down - without their permission. Fortunately they don't have a dog but, if there had been a dog, who would have been responsible? The foundations also come up almost to the very boundary line. Yes, it is going to be intrusive.
They knew none of this before the foundations were laid. I doubt she or her husband could read a plan even if they had been given one. The plans are there for the builders, for the architect, the council planners and the department to work on. 
The woman in question is reluctant to complain. She doesn't want to upset the people who will be her new neighbours, especially as they are of a different ethnic background. The new house will however have a negative impact on the value of their property. It should not have been allowed to  happen either.
In the case in the paper it seems the owners of the house to be demolished have, if the report is correct, attempted to do the right thing. When a complaint was made they modified the design - twice. They gained approval. That should have been enough. The planning people did a u-turn on the last complaint. If correct then yes, the council needs to take some responsibility for what has happened. The owners are now hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt through no fault of their own. 
I don't know where that will go. I suspect the owners will lose because  to make the council liable will open up a huge area of litigation that nobody will want.
But I wonder what would have happened if similar action had been taken over some of the houses we were forced to live in when I was a kitten. The Senior Cat  was sent to rural areas. There was no housing available there so the government provided fibro-asbestos houses. They were the cheapest possible kind of house that could be built. The walls are thin. There is no insulation. I know that at least one of these houses is more than sixty years old and still being lived in although it was considered "temporary".  I imagine it still has the old "Metters no. 5" wood burning stove - and perhaps even the wood-chip hot water  heater in the bathroom?  
There was one house we lived in where the builders had failed to clear the land properly. The houses are built on little stilts and the trees were struggling to grow back underneath. Middle Cat and I spent two years sleeping on mattresses on the floor because there was no way to get beds into the bedroom. Our parents had single beds head to toe against the wall of another room. The house was, supposedly, new. There had been no oversight of the building of it though so the inexperienced builders had simply done something they thought  was good enough - skimping at the same time.
In another place the beds has to go in through the windows. That might happen in old, narrow houses in Europe - but in a new house in Downunder? The roof leaked there too - because the builders hadn't followed the plans.
Planning permission is essential. We would be in a mess without it.
It seems we can be in a mess with it too.