Permitted Development and Extenstion since 1948

[nickster]

Hi All...

Have searched high and low on this one - so thought I'd post in case anyone has any thoughts.

We have a bunglow in an AONB & Green belt. It was originally a small cottage built in 1835 and extended in 1978. The footprint of the current house is only slightly larger than the original cottage PLUS it's walled garden and outhouse which were demolished and replaced with the extension.

Permitted development clearly states our limits are 4m at the back, and unlimited at the front (as no highway) - but district council says we can only extend from a wall of the ORIGINAL house, not the extension.

Firstly I cant see that in the wording - it states limits based on original dwellinghouse but doesn't seem to say extension can only be FROM those walls.

Also they say we can't extend from a wall which was demolished and replaced.

Either argument would allow us to extend from a more sensible part of the house and do a nice tidy jobm wheres the council would happily allow to us to make the house five times bigger in a totally absurd and visible way...

Any thoughts very welcome!

Cheers

Nickster

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

I think you're splitting hairs tbh, the PD rights are a bit arbitrary however, its fairly obvious that you can only extend from the original house wall, otherwise there is theoretically nothing stopping you adding 4m every year on to the back of your extension. If you remove a wall and rebuild it, it is standard planning policy that that is then a new wall not an existing wall so annoying but normal.

 

[nickster]

Yes I know - cluctching at straws really - but they're happy for us to extend from a concrete wall that was reclad in brick to match and "embedded" in the new extension...

We also have PP for a 5.5m x 6m garage never built in 1978 which they're happy for us to build as an annexe, but not to link to the house to get that extra bedroom...

Our other option is to change the conservatory roof to tiles or lightweight tiles... It had full PP to built it, so the transparent roof wasn't a condtition...

All options seem illogical compared to what we're not allowed to do...

Cheers

Nickster

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

All options seem illogical

You have just described council planning departments in a nutshell!