To the Piotrowicz family, it is a dream conservatory, the perfect addition to their home.

To Bradford Council, it is a flagrant abuse of the planning laws.

To the taxpayer, it is a ridiculous situation that has cost thousands of pounds of public money.

Whoever is in the right and whoever is in the wrong in this sorry saga that has dragged on for far too long, it is a farce that never should have happened.

On the one hand, the Piotrowiczes have, finally, been given the result they were looking for by the Government, and have been told they can keep their conservatory despite it being just large enough to fall outside the boundary of a structure not needing planning permission.

On the other hand, the Council has strict planning regulations to work to, and cannot start making arbitrary exceptions here and there, for that way planning chaos lies.

The Piotrowiczes say they were told they didn’t need planning permission. The Council says they did, and ordered them to tear down the conservatory.

It is probably right and sane that a £10,000 conservatory should stay put, if only not to throw yet more money down the drain on this matter.

But, in a way, we can’t blame the Council for sticking to its guns – and the letter of planning law.

What is ridiculous is that the situation happened at all, and was allowed to snowball to such a big and costly affair.

To avoid such a thing happening again, the planning rules must be clear, strict and adhered to on all sides before a single brick is laid on any new structure.