Just a thought

I've always worked in the incredibly regulated environments of military, space hardware, pharmaceuticals and nuclear - so rules is rules!

I have a quandary at the moment - I'm building an extension and I've found a tiny error/conflict on the plan - a window dimension is wrong - it needs to be slightly bigger to meet building regs (they signed the plans off without noticing) but if I make it to the legal requirements, I should inform the planning department - but they could cause me all sorts of grief because their rules are completely arbitrary and vary on the judgement of the person's whims on the day - and they could demand a full planning application that they might refuse.    If I don't make it to the legal requirements, the building inspector will spot it as he has to inspect this detail to sign it off.

A third route is to just build it how it needs to be and hope they don't notice or apply for a certificate of normalisation afterwards - which could end up with me having to re-build it to their demands.

This is really bothering me,  

What would you do?

I've always worked in the incredibly regulated environments of military, space hardware, pharmaceuticals and nuclear - so rules is rules!

I have a quandary at the moment - I'm building an extension and I've found a tiny error/conflict on the plan - a window dimension is wrong - it needs to be slightly bigger to meet building regs (they signed the plans off without noticing) but if I make it to the legal requirements, I should inform the planning department - but they could cause me all sorts of grief because their rules are completely arbitrary and vary on the judgement of the person's whims on the day - and they could demand a full planning application that they might refuse.    If I don't make it to the legal requirements, the building inspector will spot it as he has to inspect this detail to sign it off.

A third route is to just build it how it needs to be and hope they don't notice or apply for a certificate of normalisation afterwards - which could end up with me having to re-build it to their demands.

This is really bothering me,  

What would you do?

Try and let them know on the quiet first, that you've found an error; without going into a formal complaint procedure. These guys are definitely fallible, and I reckon if you point out to them carefully that they've made a small mistake, they will probably try to rectify it so that neither you nor they lose face. I was once on a site where the planning inspectors turned up and advised us to stop work immediately, saying that a planning application hadn't been received. I pointed out to them that I personally had delivered the application to the planning office application box in good time. But there was nothing acrimonious about this, from which I conclude they knew that it was probably a miscommunication. They accepted that they might have made some mistake, but still advised immediate stoppage. Before we even got back to base, word came through that the plan had actually already been accepted. So we were back on the same site, the next day.

My original plan on leaving school was to study Town & Country Planning. I got as far as being accepted by a couple of polytechnics. I wish now I had stuck to my original plan.