Neighbour has requested PP for raising rear garden and a 3.5m fence, surely not?

So asking this on behalf of a friend who doesn't use the forum.

Her neighbour has been building an extension which required a lot of excavation of soil for a new basement room.

Rather than having the soil removed, this neighbour wants to raise the level of their rear garden which naturally slopes away to a nature reserve at the end of the properties. They've put in the following planning application:

http://documents.rochdale.gov.uk/pav/planapp.aspx?MyQueryID=108&OBKey__705_1=21/00670/HOUS

This is separate to the extension build which has already been approved and work is underway with soil already been dumped on the garden.

The upshot is my friend is going to end up with a huge fence that is up to 3.5m high in their garden, because the neighbour still wants a 1.8m fence on top of their new ground level. Proposed elevation F-F below is from her garden.

Obviously my friend isn't very happy. Not only will this create a massive ugly wall, currently the boundary is planted with various hedges/bushes which straddle the boundary, so she's going to lose a lot of greenery from her garden too.

I am conscious that you must object on the planning policies of the council, but what are the key things she could object to here?

- Loss of light/amenity?
- Visual impact?
- Drainage issues?
- Structural integrity - there is no details of foundations, and a retaining wall made of wood holding back up to 1.7m of soil wouldn't last long. Not sure if this would be BC not planning, but sure the plans must have adequate detail to assess the overall nature of the PP?
- Danger of collapse at the end of the garden - elevation E-E seems to indicate a sheer cliff of soil at the end of the neighbour's garden, with nothing to retain the additional soil, just a fence on top.

The PP form is wrong because the work has started, trees/bushes are in the place and a couple of other things.

Any suggestions folks, as this is really upsetting my friend that her garden is potentially going to be ruined because her neighbours don't want to remove the soil from their build?

Thanks

Proposed Site Plan



Proposed Elevations (F-F is my friend's garden).




Existing elevations - although not sure what red lines are as doesn't reflect existing ground level

As I understand you are not allowed to deliberately drain surface water onto a neighbouring property, if that is any help.

I think your friend needs to concentrate on the impact rather than the structural or technical aspects as that's not really a planning issue.

She needs to construct a well written statement on the effects on the family and their use of the garden and house. Choose adjectives carefully for impact and resonance like a well written novel - eg the towering fence, the eclipsing of all light creating a permanent winter. The planners need to be able to feel what it will be like. Create a picture of this dismal life in the shadows.

Visual impact certainly, its a depressing industrial-looking fence even at 1.8 m, let alone nearly 100% higher than any normal garden fence, and belongs around a prison not a family garden. Then you have all the shading, shadows, lack of use of the part of the garden that "the family love using for family time in summertime".

Mention how anxious this will make the family feel, and other feelings that it will create - which is important to get across. The constant worry of it blowing down in the ferocious gales that frequently occur.

The materials, it looks plastic, even so it will create sound echos and reverberations, amplifying wind and other noise to sound like thunder. "How can a family, elderly grandparents wanting a peaceful afternoon relaxing bear such such unbearable noise?" (Even if there are no grandparents)

Drainage may be a planning concern. Where will all that water running down the fence go to? Where will the higher land drain to, and how?

Why can't the fence be stepped down like any other family garden? (A rhetorical question, you know why)

But bear in mind that that the application is for the fence and permission to raise the ground level which is also a planning issue. So objections need to be for both - individual objections for each and for the combined effect.

It does appear that the drawings are intentionally designed to mislead, in the way they have drawn the proposed ground levels in the red line section - which is totally impractical. Perhaps drawn like that for the approval but then the ground will be levelled across?

Get a councillor around to look from the back garden, and set something up to replicate the fence height.

Ask the planner to require a sun/shade study early on if this will likely go in your friend's favour and show a lot of shade.

When a friend's community wanted to argue against a new building, they flew helium balloons to demonstrate the height and it was very successful.
Making a few 3.5 m poles with a sheet of fabric between them would be a powerful image either in photos or on a visit

Thanks for the input guys, especially Woody for the detailed reply. I will let her know all these suggestions.

Some Council’s have site visits that Councillors attend where objections are made. Unlikely perhaps now because of lockdown, and a greater officer delegation for domestic applications.

Blup

if they hold zoom type meetings then you could sit in your garden with an iPhone/ipad/tablet and "appear" in person? I understand that when they do site visits they are not supposed to talk to the public?
Or make a video submission to email in? (if allowed?)

If you want to make something appear smaller and less imposing, then you use a wide angle lens and this makes objects in the background appear further away and less overpowering. Suffice to say that if you film on the long end of a lens (zoomed in) then distance is crushed, and a background object seems to be far bigger/closer than it might be in person.

There is also the argument that under permitted development rules, 2m is the maximum height allowed between neighbours.

Although this is a planning application, it could be pointed out that the P.D. rules about 2m maximum height have been in force for many years, and subsequently will have become a benchmark for what is considered a reasonable maximum fence height between neighbours.

tony1851 said:

There is also the argument that under permitted development rules, 2m is the maximum height allowed between neighbours.

Although this is a planning application, it could be pointed out that the P.D. rules about 2m maximum height have been in force for many years, and subsequently will have become a benchmark for what is considered a reasonable maximum fence height between neighbours.

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That makes no sense, the same argument could be put forward for every other PD rule vs planning applications.

freddiemercurystwin said:

That makes no sense, the same argument could be put forward for every other PD rule vs planning applications.

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As a further example: when determining planning applications for single-storey rear extensions, many councils in our area have a policy of restricting them to 3m projection. On that basis, I submit that the dimensions allowed under permitted development rules are bound to have some impact on how planning officers consider the 'reasonableness' (or otherwise) of applications.

tony1851 said:

As a further example: when determining planning applications for single-storey rear extensions, many councils in our area have a policy of restricting them to 3m projection. On that basis, I submit that the dimensions allowed under permitted development rules are bound to have some impact on how planning officers consider the 'reasonableness' (or otherwise) of applications.

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PD criteria is set nationally by central government, and does not take into account local conditions. It is 'imposed' on local planning authorities and as such is not favoured as a standard or even as an example of what is reasonable. Given the opportunity, local planners would much rather dictate what is reasonable for the areas under their control.

Further, PD is intended to free up planning authorities by taking the burden off them from deciding every single planning change. To that end, it sets a level for which certain operations are deemed automatically acceptable, but it is not intended to say that anything not PD is unacceptable, but that the acceptability needs to be checked via a planning application.

So using your example of councils only allowing 3m extensions, that is unlikely to have anything to do with PD, but more likely to do with the fact that most urban homes are 9m wide an have gardens that are no more than 20m long and neighbours have windows that will be affected by extensions greater than 3m out. I'm sure that given a suitable amount of space and distant or no neighbours, extensions greater than 3 m would be permitted because there is no reason not to permit them.

^woody^ said:

So using your example of councils only allowing 3m extensions, that is unlikely to have anything to do with PD,

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One of our local councils had a planning policy of restricting single-storey rear extensions to 2.4m. When the revised PD rules came in, they changed that policy to a maximum 3m (when PP was required, eg with a wrap-round).

tony1851 said:

One of our local councils had a planning policy of restricting single-storey rear extensions to 2.4m. When the revised PD rules came in, they changed that policy to a maximum 3m (when PP was required, eg with a wrap-round).

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What so your local councils planning policy means they'll never give planning approval for anything outside of the PD criteria?

So, your friend is on the south side, which could be helpful. I suggest that you let the neighbours know that should the PP go through, and if they persist in this plan to impose a 3.5m concrete horrible looking fence on your neighbours, they will plant a fast growing bamboo screen all the way along and close to the new fence. As bamboo can grow to 7-8m tall it will effectively screen the fence (but also block all the light to their garden). Conveniently, as bamboo is a grass it doesn't fall into the high hedges legislation (although there have been attempts to get it included).

tony1851 said:

One of our local councils had a planning policy of restricting single-storey rear extensions to 2.4m. When the revised PD rules came in, they changed that policy to a maximum 3m (when PP was required, eg with a wrap-round).

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Link to the council and/or the policy.

Policies are intended to control local development and local issues so whilst I could understand that a council may want to limit over-development in certain circumstances, I can't imagine for one minute that people living in that council's area with larger houses are going to be at all happy with the council's policy restricting them to such small extensions for no valid reason - and I suspect the Planning Inspectorate wont be too understanding either.