Does anyone here have any experience of planning permission?!

[totallystuck]

Long term infrequent poster here but have NC'd.

For 3 years I looked after 6 children each day along with a co-chilminder. ALL the children in our care had siblings and we also were pregnant so we decided to expand. We put an application in with our local council to change my home from residential to business and increase the numbers from 6 to 14 with 4 members of staff. 2 children being staff children and 6 sets of siblings.

We were told the application would take 9 weeks. At 26 weeks we hadn't had a decision as so we took the children on and I moved out of the house. At 32 weeks the council said we could not use the house solely for business. We appealed this and the appeal was also denied.

It was denied on the grounds of:

loss of residential dwelling
possible noise impact on neighbors
increased traffic movements

We are thinking about submitting a new application for mixed business and residential use and wondered if anyone had any advice? We're also looking at other premises but there are literally none in our area.

Any advice would be fab.

I have mixed residential and business use a mind with my husband. We didn't have any trouble once we'd gone through dealing with parking spaces, neighbours, road visibility etc. Are you registering as Childcare on domestic premises, or a nursery, or something, as you have so many staff and children?

We're still technically registered as childminders as all the extra children are siblings or staff children so Ofsted have ok'd it (and came and inspected us off the back of it). We only have 3 staff on the premises at any one time.

I think we will plod on with the mixed use application then, even though I've been advised it probably wont go through. A nursery round the corner from us just got permission to increase their number to 98!

My partner is a chartered surveyor, he recommends you make an appointment to meet with the planning officer to see what he recommends. He suspects the parking issue will be your major obstacle.

thanks Drink your milk - they point blank will not meet with me - they say my case is simple and pre-planning advice is not usually given :(

The funny thing about the parking is that the highways agency have said it's fine. Also the large nursery further down the road is at a junction with a very busy road and when they last extended their numbers by 9 children, it was said that 9 cars would not have a negative impact.

I want to extend my (potential) cars (42% of children walk at the mo) by 8, 1 less than the nursery down the road! I also have a drive for staff parking and ample off street parking. I have a policy in place that if we have a parent who parks inconsiderately over neighbors drives etc they have a "fine" and if they do it 3 times we end their contract with us. We also give a 3% discount to anyone who car shares or arrives by means other than car.