DP and I applied to add a bedroom and a downstairs extension to our house. We live on a modern estate just outside a large town. We are defined as living in the green belt, despite it being reclaimed land, as the boundary is the dual carriageway, which we are on the other side of. We copied an extension type that has been approved in several other houses on the estate and used the same architect as two of them. However the application was refused, which came as a huge shock. It seems that the case officer changed a week before the deadline for the decision and the new case officer has decided our application doesn't meet two guidelines. We agree it does not, but believe the council have set precedents for one not being applied on our estate and don't believe the other should be applied in our case. Can anyone please advise based on the below? I am in the process of writing our appeal to be submitted in the next week or so.
- the site visit paperwork, which was only available online after the decision was reached, was completed by the original officer and has a tick next to 'does it meet guidelines', implying that they thought the plans were suitable;
- our total new floorspace would be above 30%. In the last four years the council have approved at least three extensions of this size or bigger on our estate (one was more than 50% larger);
- there is a statement in the decision that says they don't wish to change the mix of housing on the estate, however there are literally dozens of applications, all of which have been granted, to add another bedroom or additional room that could be used as a bedroom on the estate. Three doors down received permission (I know its not the same type of application) in the last few weeks to convert their loft into a bedroom, making it the same type of house as the one we would like and their house is much smaller to begin with (no outside space or garage, hence them building into their roof)
This next bit is more difficult and I'd be very grateful for any advice:
- the proposed bedroom would be above the garage, which is the boundary wall. Whilst there is a guideline stating that walls should not be built to the boundary, ours was the boundary anyway. Additionally it would not, we believe, create a terracing effect with next door as their house is at a slight angle to ours, set back from ours and is down a slope so when you look at them from the front they don't look like they line up, nor do they look like they are even in the same street as there is a bend in the road. They would also be extremely unlikely to want to build to their boundary (currently their drive) as our garden is at the back of their drive with a high fence, so the room would not get much light.
We have also been told (don't know how true this is) that custom is for the first neighbour to be granted permission and the second neighbour who wants to infill to be refused.
Regardless, the proposed solution from the new officer was to only build to within a certain distance of the boundary, creating a room 1.5m wide on top of the garage, which wouldn't be usable as a bedroom. However when I look at previously passed applications, about 3 or 4 have had second storey extensions or even double storey extensions to the boundary. These have had extremely sloping rooves, so the angle disguises the extra bedroom and it retains the full width. We would have considered this but we're not told it was an option - the new officer was adamant the smaller room was the only option.
Finally, the second case officer has handled the case in an extremely unprofessional manner and it's making me concerned that the decision was not made correctly. They called our architect (who we paid a flat fee to handle the case) at 4:30pm on the deadline day and told him that he had half an hour to amend the plans or a refusal would be made. This breeches the guidelines of giving applicants sufficient time - until this point he had only good news to report from the previous case officer. He managed to secure a 2 day extension and the new officer called him and emailed him several times in the next 24 hours harassing him for an answer (this is evident in the email chain), which culminated in him losing his temper the following day and she hung up on him. He should not have lost his temper and at that point I bypassed him and called the planning office to try and understand what was going on, but I feel by only telling us at the last minute she created a very pressured situation that made it virtually impossible for us to come up with an alternative solution. My partner and I both work and so it's only after the fact when I've had time to write the appeal that I've been able to trawl through the council website and find all these examples. We sent them pictures of houses we knew about on the estate, but didn't receive a response, just the email from her to the architect detailing the decision.
Sorry for war and peace - does anyone have any experience or advice they can share please? 77
