A DISABLED boy cannot bathe properly and have his own bedroom because planning officials turned down an extension, his family have said.

The family of Goran Pearce have appealed to Oxford City Council to review its decision to refuse a two-storey extension to his Marston home.

The 12-year-old Springfield School, Witney, pupil has genetic condition Lesch-Nyhan syndrome and uses a wheelchair and has mental disabilities.

Grandmother Hana Cook, 75, said he cannot get into their shower – the home does not have a bath – because of mobility problems.

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And she said he sleeps in his monther’s room as she does not want him to be further away from her downstairs.

The extension would give him his own room and bath at the semi-detatched home in Hayes Close.

Mrs Cook, who lives with Goran’s mother Caroline Pearce, 43, said: “We desperately need this.

“The council have gone too far with this, they don’t understand what we need and how this will give him a decent life. It is disgusting.

“It makes me so angry how we have been ignored.”

And she said the family was angry the council did not tell the family of the decision and they only found out by looking it up on its website.

Mrs Pearce, an administrator at the Said Business School, said: “We need this because Goran can’t get his wheelchair into the bathroom at the moment. We only have a shower.

“Also I have to carry him up the stairs at the moment and he’s getting heavier. We need a proper wet room and a lift installed for him, because I won’t be able to carry him as he gets older.”

A council planning officer said the plan “would represent an overdevelopment of the site”.

She warned of its “excessive size, resulting in an over-dominance which will be detrimental to the character of this established residential area”.

It would take up too much of the garden and result in an “unacceptable loss of outlook and of sunlight” for the house next door.

Three people objected with one neighbour warning about the “negative impact on light”.

Mary Clark, a city councillor for Marston, said the council said the family were not told as the officer stopped working there.

She said: “Imagine my horror when I got the list of all the planning cases which said it had been refused.

“I was appalled no-one had been in touch with me or the family. It looked like I had let them down.”

The Labour councillor said: “Insufficient account had been taken of Goran’s situation. I was very angry.’’ She said she is working with the family to revise the plan in the hope it can be approved.

Council spokesman Chofamba Sithole confirmed it did not directly tell the family but did tell the scheme architect.

He said: “The application was correctly processed by a qualified planning officer who carried out a site visit as part of her assessment of the application.

“The council is aware of the disabled child and councillors and officers have been working closely with the applicant’s planning agent following the refusal in order to try to find an acceptable solution so that the family can provide the accommodation that is required at the same time as overcoming the reason for refusal on the previous application.”

 

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