Two storey side extension planning refused - what now?

[jimb083]

Hello everyone,

We have just been informed that our planning application for a 2 storey side extension has been refused on the grounds of it being intrusive to our neighbours land. Our house is a 3 bed semi and the extension plan was to build a two storey which would incorporate a garage, utility to the rear on the ground floor and a large bedroom and extension of an existing bedroom into the new building. The dimensions of which are 3m in width and 8.5m in length.
The build would have gone almost (bar 10 inch) to the boundary which is a fence and would cover approximately 60% of our driveway down the side of the house. Planning have stated that the extension would encroach on our neighbour's space being next to their garden as their house is set off ours being on a cul de sac. We agreed with our architect that we would not have a window in the gable as we were to have a window at the front and rear of the new bedroom and also for privacy purposes for the neighbours.
This decision has been made despite the neighbour in question being un objective of the proposal!

Is there any point appealing? I fear that if we take off any sizeable dimension from the width to satisfy planning would leave us with an expensive but useless space. We have made the decision to extend due to having twins recently, subsequently needing more space.

Any advice would be appreciated as we are very inexperienced at this and a second opinion would be very useful.

Thank you in advance!

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Does the application meet the Local Plan guidance? You need to find out if you are unsure.

 

[jimb083]

Hello Freddy, thanks for the reply! How could I find out if it does meet the criteria?

Regards

 

[RonnyRaygun]

Some councils impose a rule where the first floor must be a minimum of 1m from the boundary, although the ground floor can go right up to the boundary.

 

[Architexeter]

I have not seen the design but I should think making the extension with more of a "room in roof" design with sloping ceilings would make the extension look significantly smaller yet still acheive good first floor accommodation.

If you are looking for the Local Authority extension design guidance it is normally a "supplementary planning guidance" or SPD and should be on the website.

 

[tony1851]

Surely your architect should have been clued up on local policy guidelines?

 

[Architexeter]

Regarding your question on appealing:

If that was your first shot at it then you have one free resubmission to planning. I would try and get something through at local level before going to appeal. Hopefully you can respond to the refusal without compromising too far, but that depends on the original design.

Get a decision on the revised design, subtley hint that if this is also refused you will go to appeal (as its appeal or move and appealing is much cheaper!) and then if refused take one or both to appeal if you so wish.

You could also speak to your local ward councillor as they can call it to planning committee.

Get your neighbours to comment on the application when it is valid and tick the "support" box.

Your planning agent should be able to advise you further regarding the above.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

You will need to find your Local Plan and read it. It sets out local planning policies and how applications are judged. Phone your planning department and ask them to send you the links to it. It will undoubtedly be online somewhere and theoretically you should be able to find it from your local Authority’s website but inevitably they are a complete nightmare to find usually.

It would not be the first time a 'designer' submitted something that did not meet Local Plan guidance .....

That said there is nothing intrinsically wrong in doing so, though the client should be made aware of the risk.

 

[jimb083]

Ok so thank you and I'll consider all those points and certaily check the planning guideline for my local council, about my architect, he is retired and maybe not as "finger on the pulse" as others currently in the trade, but it's happened now and we were very direct about what we wanted. Either way anything less is not going to be useful for us in the long term and would be a waste of money in our eyes. However, moving is simply not an option.

Our other neighbour who's house is attached to ours has had an extension built recently which is the same as our proposed build with a extra room on the rear onto the garden, which makes it miles bigger than ours, they had no problem with planning, I can't understand why ours has been refused!

Thanks for everyone's responses!

 

[cjard]

Might be an idea to go and take a look online at what your neighbour submitted in support of their proposal and who the case officer for them was - you might have had a different case officer and/or a less strong supporting document set (planning, design and access statement)

Did you go for guidance from the council before you submitted?

Post up the decision notice they gave you here so we can read it. You can wash out any personally identifying information if you wish as it wouldn't be necessary for us to comment on the general aspects of the application.

 

[jimb083]

Might be an idea to go and take a look online at what your neighbour submitted in support of their proposal and who the case officer for them was - you might have had a different case officer and/or a less strong supporting document set (planning, design and access statement)

Did you go for guidance from the council before you submitted?

Post up the decision notice they gave you here so we can read it. You can wash out any personally identifying information if you wish as it wouldn't be necessary for us to comment on the general aspects of the application.

I have been talking to the adjoining neighbours (who have had the extension) and have also been looking at their application documents and it appears that they had a different officer on their case. What difference would this make? Can I request that someone else look at my application?
Their drawings etc look to contain the same detail and information as ours and with the exception of the rear single storey element (on the neighbours extension) it's very similar in dimension.

I didn't go for guidance before I applied, our architect spoke to the planning office before we submitted but all seemed ok at this point, that's why we went ahead and applied.

I am still waiting for written confirmation of the decision as I have only just found out verbally that it will be rejected. I will post up the decision notice as soon as I receive it so you guys can have a look. I will try post my plans up now to give everyone a bit more idea of what I'm rambling on about!

 

[jimb083]

Hope this works, here are the existing and proposed plans so people can gauge an idea of the proposal. Ignore the window in the gable as we have removed this as it's not needed, this window would have overlooked the garden of the neighbour in question.



Plans as existing

View media item 69964

Proposed plans

View media item 69965 [/img]

 

[eddieed]

We have had similar problems. Its about overbearing other people property. Not about privacy.

I had a quick look at your plans and would go for the free resubmision. As your house already has a fron gable I would significanly drop your roof heigh and put a dormer window in the front. As someone else sugested put a room in the roof. This will give you the same floor space but a little less head room in some place but significantly reduce the bulk of the extension.

The other thing that we would have to do here is set the front of the extension back from the front of the existing house. This will reduce the bulk. It doesn't have to be much. I have seen them set back by 1 brick and as much as 1 metre.

You may get away with only setting back the 1st storey but of course you then need steels to hold the wall up!

 

[jimb083]

We have had similar problems. Its about overbearing other people property. Not about privacy.

I had a quick look at your plans and would go for the free resubmision. As your house already has a fron gable I would significanly drop your roof heigh and put a dormer window in the front. As someone else sugested put a room in the roof. This will give you the same floor space but a little less head room in some place but significantly reduce the bulk of the extension.

The other thing that we would have to do here is set the front of the extension back from the front of the existing house. This will reduce the bulk. It doesn't have to be much. I have seen them set back by 1 brick and as much as 1 metre.

You may get away with only setting back the 1st storey but of course you then need steels to hold the wall up!

Thanks for the input! How does the resubmission work? Does it mean I would have to compromise on the size and go with something like the room in a roof idea?

I'm obviously moveable to a degree but doing that would compromise the size of one of the bedrooms at the rear of the property which I wanted to extend into the new building. This will make the two smaller bedrooms the same size (eliminating any future disputes over bedrooms between the twins!)

I just can't understand how next door got the same thing passed off when they have built literally 50mm up to their neighbours gable? Their planning was only passed about 18months ago too? Is this not a case for prescience? Their neighbour also has the same extension which was granted in 2003! I feel a little done really!

I'm not saying I'm totally averse to compromise but I'm figuring if I have any grounds to appeal then I may as well try before I settle with something lesser.

Thanks for your reply!

 

[eddieed]

You need to keep the planning department on side. Contact your planner and talk to him. Say that you are looking to resubmit and want to work with them to find something agreeable to you both.

If you annoy them they get their backs up, this is what happend to us, our Architect annoyed them and they have been a problem since!

Your resubmision is free within 6 months anyway. In theroy they shouldn't just be rejecting anyway they should work with you prior to issuing the refusal to see if there is a scheme that would work.

Once you have the permission for the revised scheme if you still feel agreived over the initial decision then you can appeal that one. You will have to be quick though as the householder appeal process now has to be started within 16 weeks of the refusal date! HTH