Loss of light - precedents

[raine]

Hi guys,

Is precedent relevant in loss of light planning issues?

E.g. If similar details with the same loss of light (or worse) exist in the immediately adjacent properties, would this be taken into consideration and the proposal therefore allowed on this basis?

Thanks all.

 

[^woody^]

No

 

[raine]

Short & sweet.
Thanks Woody.

 

[garyo]

My understanding is that precedent doesn't really existing anywhere in planning. The closest you get is to say that if the identical house next door did something five years ago, then it must have been possible within the local planning policy at the time, and therefore you should be able to find a way of doing something similar as long as there aren't differing circumstances between the houses (e.g. you might well have an identical house, but you could be closer to a boundary or other feature than your neighbour)

You then have the issue that policy might change over time, and the people applying the policy ('team culture' within the local planning office) can slowly change the way that subjective matters are interpreted... 'terracing' 'overbearing' 'cramped' 'overdevelopment' are all pretty subjective.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

It seems to me that they use precedents when it suits, though not always to the detriment of the applicant, I did a recent lofty in a AONB and any kind of dormers were to be resisted according to Local Policy and the Parish were 100% dead set against it, the planner, who openly disagreed with the Parish sentiment was quite open to me sending in a dozen or so examples of dormers in the vicinity to help support the application.

 

[^woody^]

Light loss requires an objective assessment based on facts, not subjective opinion based on feelings. As no two locations can ever be the same, then each situation can ony be assessed individually according to fact and degree.

But that is pure light issues, and not seemingly similar planning concepts such as say, dominance.

 

[Nakajo]

Precedent has a peripheral role in planning. So, where policy might seem to discourage the provision of roof terraces, an applicant may be able to construct an argument along the lines of 'well everyone else has one'. Because a governmental Planning Inspector has more discretion than a policy-bound LPA case officer, precedent tends to be more useful at appeal, so where local policy might resist infilling ('terracing') between a row of semi-detached houses, an Inspector is likely to look favourably upon an applicant that can demonstrate that the dominant character of their neighbourhood (because of previous development) now conforms to the exception rather than the rule. That said, loss of light is a hard sell.

 

[^woody^]

'well everyone else has one'

That kind of precedent has no place and carries little weight. The fact that several homes may already be blighted by a monstrosity of some sort, does not mean that a further monstrosity should be approved to blight another persons life. There is no reason (or obligation) to repeat previous bad planning decisions.

The only precedents that matter are those of inspectorate decisions and those from court.

There is the concept of the character of an area changing, which then leads to approvals for certain types of things which would not otherwise be approved, but that is not precedent.