Does anyone have any experience with planning applications for building work?

[Letsallscreamatthesistene]

We moved into our house just before christmas. At the side of the house there is a garage and utility room (I think it used to be all one garage, but the previous owners have sort of done a bodge job of separating it into two rooms). We put in an application to knock the existing garage down and build a bigger garage, a purpose built utility room and a master bedroom on top of that. This would take up the entire side of our house, where the current garage takes up half the side of the house. The 'consideration' phase of the planning application has just come to an end. I didnt imagine the neighbours to accept it with no objections at all, but some of the comments on the council website are ridiculous. Things like "I dont understand why they need a bigger house". Some have objected to it on the grounds of light, but these people live across the road and are not directly opposite us. The only time light would be blocked would be in the very late evening as the sunsets behind our house. Are these reasons the council will reject thr application? Im aware light is a good reason, but the extension would not block light for 99% of the day. So is it any light blocked? Or just a good proportion? What about the comments on us not needing a bigger house? Any experience welcome! Thank you.

I should also say that there is a crack in one of the walls of the garage that you can see light through, so something needs doing to sort it regardless of the neighbours objections.

Objection have to involve 'material planning reasons' to be valid. nd even then the Planning Officer will consider the scale of the impact rather than just refusing outright.

The main material consideration will be the Council's own planning policies which will be set out in their local plan (available on the Council website). Polices will usually require extensions to be in keeping with the character and appearance of the house, to be of an appropriate scale and to not materially impact on neighbours' amenities.

SO, yes the Planning Officer will consider the size of your extension - is it in keeping with the scale of your property, does it result in an over development of the site etc, but not whether you actually need it as such.

Light again is a material consideration - if it is cutting out a significant proportion of light to a primary room in your neighbour's house there may be an issue. IF the room affected is a kitchen/bathroom etc then any impact will have less weight.

THe size of the extension may also have an overpowering impact on your neighbour, or appear visually dominant, but from what you have said, I would think that unlikely unless the neighbouring property is not on the same building line as your property.

IF oyu submitted the application yourself, you could ring the Planning Officer now and ask if they had any views on the likely outcome, and whether there where any material objections. If you had someone else submit the application, they would need to ring.

THe one thing you didn't mention was how close to the boundary the extension would be. Most Councils require first floor additions to be at least 1m from the boundary as this then protects the amenities of the next door property to some extent. Sometimes they also require first floor extensions to be set back from the main front elevation too. Again - this information should be in the policies contained within the Local Plan.

So we had the drawings done by an architect and included the 1m boundary rule. We're actually pulling back the existing boundary wall so its gives more space. The architect submitted the application.

Id have thought that the fact theres an existing structure already there would perhaps work in our favour. There have been other houses near us that have had a extra room built over the garage, just not on our street.

It sounds like a perfectly normal extension. And that the Architect is familiar with the local Council policies.

Just because objections are received, it certainly doesn't mean that PP will be refused. It may mean that the application may have to be decided by the Planning Committee, rather than at officer level, but that will depend on the rues of the individual Council.

Thanks - im really hoping it'll be ok. One thing thats irked me the most is that one neighbour in particular is fairly manipulative, and has sort of agitated enough to get the other neighbours to object. I can tell this because they all say the same thing (albeit in different words). Im trying to be neutral and level headed about it!

Good luck OP.

Thank you 🙂