I applied to have a vehicle crossover installed, for which one's first step is to complete an application form, together with a diagram, and send £25 to Bromley Council's street services section.

If you can show they meet the requisite rules on minimum measurements, garden plans, road junctions, the felling of trees, the moving of drains and water meters, in due course an applicant living in a house should receive a quotation from the council to install the crossover.

If the owner wishes to accept the quotation, they send a cheque to the council for the amount quoted, minus the £25 already forwarded with the application form.

It is not nearly so simple if you own a flat or maisonette.

You send in your completed application form and plan, together with a cheque for £25 but you then receive a standard letter telling you that as a flat or maisonette owner you have no permitted development rights whatsoever.

Therefore, you will have to obtain planning permission.

This will cost you a further £135 before anybody at the council has even looked at your application.

If you decide to press ahead with your application, you forward your cheque to the planning department.

Even if planning permission is granted, you do not receive the £135 fee back.

The rub here for flat and maisonette owners is having dispatched a cheque for £25, together with an application form and a diagram - which may turn out to be unacceptable - the street services section does not merely contact the applicant at this juncture and notify them they can't have their desired crossover.

They will simply send it on to the planning department, at further cost to the applicant, even though they are probably aware in advance it does not comply with the necessary building regulations and therefore will in all likelihood be refused.

P Hughes, Bourne Road, Bromley