Garage with Guestroom - Conversion to Holiday Let

[Frazer B]

I desperately need some advice with an on going battle to convert my double garage with guestroom into a 2 bed holiday let. The planning office are unlikely to grant approval based on increase in traffic on a quiet lane and exiting from a tight junction; parking and also ecology.

• Will I need a traffic survey to disprove the levels of increase they suggest and how expensive is it to get done?
• Natural England have no issues with any of the proposals put forward but will I still need an ecology report based on the fact the garage development sits adjacent to a SSSI?
• I have created a parking area by digging into the side of bank owned by myself. This was done over 4 years ago. How do I make this a legal parking area?

I realise this sounds like a whinge but a rich undesirable developer has succeeded with an application for a large house only 1 meter from my garage with no issues drawn on traffic increases. Why is it the honest home owner get shafted while the land grabbing bankrupted rich developers prosper? Anyway, any help with the above would be mightily appreciated.......

 

[Nakajo]

Since you ask, it's called a constitutional monarchy. You are a subject, not a citizen, and we as a nation think it important that you know your place. But, hey ho, non illegitimi carborundum and all that.

 

[^woody^]

A traffic survey wont help - they measure current traffic not hypothetical future traffic. This is really a common sense argument - eg the traffic from one visitor using the holiday let is less than two members of your family using two vehicles and the double garage.

An ecology survey can be requested as and when deemed necessary, but its not an issue, just a pain.

If you have made a parking area on your land then that's it, there is no process in making this "legal"

 

[Nakajo]

One thing to bear in mind with ecology surveys is that they often need to be conducted at certain times of year, so while they're not a requirement of validation, it can be in your interest to provide one ahead of it being requested (if that's the sort of thing that's likely to happen). Local Authorities used to require them as pre-start conditions, but they were often ignored or fudged so they don't do that any more.