WEST Somerset District Council has been warned it faces a "vigorous" fight after councillors effectively sounded the death knell for a newly-built home.
Architects claim one of two recently completed houses at Holford Glen Garage will have to be demolished and rebuilt after councillors refused to accept alterations to the design and positioning of the building.
While applicant Wiveliscombe builder Tony Sandercock wanted the council's planning committee to accept the alterations as "minor amendments", councillors thought otherwise.
They were told the completed house was 0.28 metres closer to the road than had been agreed and the ridge height of the two-storey extension was one metre higher than permitted.
At their meeting last Thursday, they instructed officers to draft a report detailing the various enforcement action options available to them.
But in a letter to the committee, architects Alan Coles Associates said their client would fight them every step of the way.
Mr Coles wrote: "To rectify these mistakes, my client would have to demolish the building and start again.
"If the council decides that the solution is to take enforcement action against my client then there would be no alternative but to defend the action as vigorously as possible.
"If the DoE inspector found in favour of my client then the damages against the council would be very substantial, especially considering the impossibility of selling the property until the case was decided."
Mr Coles added: "I therefore ask you on behalf of my client and of the Council Tax payers of West Somerset to beg the committee members to be lenient.
"What would be gained by such [enforcement] action except vengeance, the bankruptcy of a local builder and a great deal of bad publicity?"
Mr Coles explained that the truss manufacturers had misinterpreted the drawings for the house, which had resulted in the ridge height being higher than agree.
Similarly, a mistake had been made when the "tricky" foundations were dug out due to the "nature of the brown field site and its use as a petrol station with all the pipes and concrete structures encountered in the ground during excavation".
He also pointed out that, as an architect, he found the steeper roof pitch "more aesthetically pleasing".
Councillors, however, were unmoved and opted to discuss enforcement action in more detail at their next meeting.