Has anyone had their neighbour object to a planning application?

[HeadFairy]

How did you stop yourself from killing them

Very frustrated, neighbours who previously said they would be fine with proposed building work have lodged an objection claiming their light will be adversely affected in their kitchen.

They are now totally avoiding us, our front doors face each other and three times today they've scuttled away when normally they'd stop to chat.

Not sure what I can do but sit and wait for the planning dept to make their mind up, but just wanted to vent.

Has anyone else had objections against their planning application and still gone on to win?

Flossie, it was fine. We weren't pals, but we'd chat about weather and incidentals in the street, he fixed my tumble dryer once (he's an electrician) and I bought them two bottles of really expensive wine to say thanks (nearly £20 a bottle) because he'd refused payment. We showed them the plans a year ago and they said they were fine with it.

He's not even the home owner, his wife has lived there for years, she inherited it from her mother. She was single and a few years ago did a lot of Internet dating (she told us all about it, we had to endure her endless sobbing when dates didn't come to anything) and she met him, they married about a year ago. We've lived he much longer than he has!

I sincerely hope it doesn't go to committee stage, everyone's told me its a nightmare and it gets really political. That actually scares me.

Are you in a conservation area? The conditions he's suggesting sound like you are - timber windows/reclaimed brick and so on...

The shrubs and planting in your own front garden have fuck all to do with him, unless they're magnificent TPO covered mighty oaks.

Parking non issue really - it's a house, will still be a house, albeit slightly larger. Parking standards tend to look at the unit - you're not converting into flats or making more units, so parking not relevant.

Pooka we're not in a conversation area. It is a lovely Victorian road but the houses are all mixed style, I mean really mixed - even two attached houses have different height roofs. So many of the houses have paved over their front gardens it makes me weep, and although it inconveniences us massively we've resisted the urge to pave over ours (he's wrong, we do have enough space to do it, I've had a council planning officer tell me) because we have a beautiful magnolia tree I would never chop down in a million years.

But I'm tempted to really ostentatiously prune the shrubs tomorrow morning! Seriously, what the fuck have our front gardens got to do with him? Theirs is nothing but dead grass and concrete!

He sounds like he's really done his homework to complain!!

Really hope everything goes well for you.

Ours has been deferred to MLA status, planners have re-assessed our plans , visited site etc & are still recommending approval.

This is the last hurdle & we are hoping to have council stamped approval in May -9 months after application was submitted. So frustrating but Cest la vie.

It will all be worth it head fairy & the building works alone will serve the revenge. Keep us updated!

Re the overlooking, if you have reasonable distance between windows, then you might actually have a larger field of vision between windows of comparable height than the oblique angle you get between windows in different storeys.

Can he actually see out of the velux though? Usually they're set high enough in the toof slope to make it impractical to gawp out of them (and the mechanism makes decapitation a strong possibility). We have a loft extension, and the velux windows simplyrpvode light, whereas the vertical windows in the dormers are more suitable for nosing

If it does go to committee, then I would make sure you write yo your local ward members to fill them in and ask them for support, or at least to persuade them into a neutral position.

If permission is refused, then you can appeal yo planning inspectorate. Our local council lets you have a free second go for revised app that tries to overcome objections submitted within a year (so no planning fee, but obvs architect fees for amendments).

If it's not a conservation area then he's having a laugh suggesting reclaimed materials and really going overboard on the attention to design detail.

It must be supremely galling when he owns a fleet of cars and for you to maintain pretty front garden for his visual pleasure. Not that you wouldn't anyway, but yswim.

If the character is pretty mixed in terms of building types, then that's strength to your arm to change appearance of yours, particularly with NDN applying jointly. More difficult to argue out of character.

The character of the road is all Victorian, with one exception at the end of the road, but our design is deliberately done so it matches the rest of the building. I was going to have wooden sashes to match the others (they've replaced theirs with upvc - it's so galling they're accusing us of so many things they're guilty of!) and all brickwork will match the original, plus the roof with be tiled in slate to match the original (many of the houses that have had loft conversions done have replaced theirs with terracotta replacement tiles, nowhere near as nice) We really love our house and our road, why would we turn it in to a hideous carbuncle? (I appreciate many many do!)

Their loft velux can be looked out of because I've seen his head sticking out of it. There are two on top of each other iyswim. The upper one is top of head height, and when it's open in the summer I can see them poking their heads out, the lower one is chest-mid thigh height and I can see them walking around in their loft room.

Good luck. The MUST be able to see he's crazy.

God I hope so slicedfinger, not going to be able to sleep at all tonight!

He sounds bonkers!

I objected to a local landlord converting a three bed end of terrace in to a 10 - yes TEN bedroom HMO. (two doors down from my house)

We went to committee and end up getting it thrown out only on the fact that it would alter the street scene (Victorian terraces) This was the ONLY thing we could use from the planning framework...

He went to appeal and won the right to convert it in to a six bed HMO. He had his permitted development rights removed so he could not convert the loft. He did it anyway. He got his ten bedroom house. Still makes me fume 6 years on.

He also owned the house over the road which he had also illegally converted in to a 10 bed HMO - and even though the council knew about this they could do nothing. We complained he had breached building regs as I found out he had put a kitchen in the top floor with no fire escape or proper fire alarms. In the end he had to rip out two kitchens and could only let it to six students

Anyway - my point is HeadFairy, is that unless your application reaches your local planning framework, it doesn't really matter what your neighbours say!

Good luck for today!

Op how did you get on??!

We got refused, I'm absolutely heartbroken. We can't afford to move and the poisonous man across the road has won.

Oh no in what grounds did they refuse? Would it be possible to alter the plans to fit in with them? Oh boy I'm sorry I thought it would go your way.

I'm so sorry to read that, but don't give up yet. As Flossie asked can you change your plans to accommodate the planners? Speak to the planners, speak to your architect, I'm sure there will be something you can do.

I'm not sure there is much we can do, they said the proximity to the neighbours would affect their light (not bat shit crazy's house, next door neighbour), but it's a window that has full sunshine from about midday onwards even at this time of year. They cited that the extension would break the 45 degree rule, ie there would be less than 45 degrees from the centre of the window to the top of the roof line, but according to our architect there isn't a 45 degree anyway. As it stands at the moment it's a 59 degree angle from the centre of their window to the roofline, and the extension would change that to 69 degrees.

They've also said that despite the fact that every house on the street has a different roof height it would adversely affect the street scene as the gables would be marginally higher than the houses either side but opposite us there is a pair of semis, unaltered externally since they were built in 1895 that have mismatched gables, so I'm baffled as to how they've come to their conclusions.

To be honest I think our architect isn't great at these sort of things so I'm wondering if we hire a planning consultant and tweak the plans and resubmit. I'm also really wondering if bat shit crazy's multiple objections swayed the planners thinking. It's pretty much impossible to prove, but surely it must have had an affect?

Right. That's a blow.

Did the planning officers report recommend refusal? What did they particularly say about the character of the street, and about the light issue to the neighbours? If it didn't go to the planning committee, and was based on officer recommendation, it's less likely IMO to be w reaction to your over the road neighbours letter and more likely to be a genuine concern about the light impact. Like I said, the planning officer will have made a professional judgement. That's not to say that they're infallible and always make the right call and are impervious to a pile of objection letters, just saying that they should be able to back up what they've said with the reasoning for their decision, and reasons for refusal should be sustainable if you lodge an appeal.

My first thought, depending upon the above. would be to appeal the refusal. If the appeal is successful, then brill. If the appeal is unsuccessful, then you can always resubmit. Alternatively, you could resubmit pronto with tweaked plans, and if that is refused, you could appeal both schemes. Unfortunately there would be a cost implication if you were to employ a consultant, though of course, if you want to tweak the plans, then no doubt the architect would charge for that.

In terms of local character, then an appeal submission could include evidence to support your appraisal of the varied character of the street - photographs showing the variety of building styles and gable heights and so on. In terms of the impact on light to the neighbour, do I recall correctly that that window is a secondary light source in as much as the back doors are glazed? So not the sole means of daylighting to the room? What part of your extension would impact on that window? Is there any room for tweaking the design subtly to increase daylight, or rather minimise impact?

Sorry that it feels like the neighbour over the road has won.

Pooka, you're a star

Ok refusal is on two grounds, the first being the effect on street scene as our house is one of the few to have a road facing gable end, so despite the fact that the roof ridge line will be level with the properties either side, the planners comments was that because the full height of the building will be closer to the road because the gable end is facing the road, the impact will be too dominating.

One of the previous drawings the architect suggested was we could slope the roof away from the road so the full effect of the raised roof is away from the road. Those drawings also had a small gabled dormer window to the front which mirrors a property opposite (which was originally constructed like this) Does that make sense? It means the gutter line will remain the same level as the neighbouring properties which the planner also commented on.

The second issue was with loss of light to a rear facing window at our next door neighbours. This window is the only light source in that room unfortunately (it's not the kitchen window which was the one I was referring to in when we were talking about the glazed door) however we do have a potential solution to that one. The roof of our house is actually in two parts. The front section covers most of the house, the back section only covers the very rear of the house. We had planned to raise both sections to keep the proportions the same, but we don't actually need to raise the back section. In raising it it gives us some decent loft storage space, but I'm prepared to sacrifice that to get the application through. It means that the loft space above the rear bathroom will be just a crawl space instead of a loft we could walk in, but that's a luxury I'm prepared to lose.

I'm going to call the planning officer to ask him if he thinks either of those adjustments would help with the issues he had with the original plan. I want to get a feeling of whether any development of this house will be allowed, or if it's a lost cause. My feeling is in these circumstances it would be better to reapply rather than appeal.

I have been recommended a planning consultant by a friend (she's the friend of a friend) so I'm going to chat to her about how much it would cost to get her on board. We've spent £3 grand so far, I don't want to give up without a fight.

It's great that you've got a couple of options for adjusting the scheme to show planner you're trying to address reasons for refusal.

must be very stressful indeed! Our own loft extension is c. 5 cubic cm inside the pd allowance of the time because we have a hip to side gable that I knew wouldn't get planning permission, and that any application I submitted would go to committee because was employee at the time.

Good luck!

Head fairy we had to alter our roof plans even though our roof would not have been visible from the road and others had extended using the same design that we had. We were told that planning laws have changed and what was acceptable then was not now. Our planning officer did offer some advice on what would be acceptable.
Our architect wanted us to go to appeal, but we decided against this as we were told it could take up to a year.
I really feel for you I know how upset I was when we were told we would be refused. But we did resubmit and we did get permission in the end.
Good luck with it and please keep us informed.

Householder appeals (for development like residential extensions) are dealt with separately by the Planning Inspectorate now. They are supposed to be decided within 8 weeks; the current average is 7 weeks.

It's worth speaking to the Planning Officer and seeing whether the Council would see any amendments as making the scheme acceptable.

Going to appeal might be the final outcome anyway.

Seeline, so many people have scared me with horror stories of planning appeals, the prospect is pretty daunting. We're going to have a pre application meeting with the case officer and see if we can resubmit something. If that second submission fails I'm tempted to appeal but dh is not keen to throw good money after bad (his words). There are so few houses around here to buy, there's a huge jump of about £250k between 3 and 4 bed houses and we just can't do that.

A house holder appeal shouldn't cost you much, if anything. There is no fee to appeal, and in its most basic form you just need to send in copies of the application documents. You don't need to employ a consultant or anything. You can write a letter raising all the points you think are relevant, and want the Inspector to take into account. He will have access to all the relevant documents (including objection letters), and will visit the site. He will then write a decision letter. the Inspectorate website has all the information details here

Seeline.... Had a really positive meeting with a planning consultant yesterday. He feels we have a really strong case for appeal given the planning department justified their comments that the project would harmfully affect the street scene by upsetting the uniformity and flow of the existing houses. The street is actually characterised by houses that are all totally different, different roof heights, different gable heights, even different coloured bricks on adjoining houses (the builders used each house as a selling point to commission the next house, so they'd use fancy brickwork to demonstrate different techniques they could use - all very quaint!)

Anyway, as a result the planning consultant feels we have a strong case because each house in the road is actually so different.

Even better news, our architect has offered to pay for the planning consultant to prepare the appeal, as he is mortified that we didn't get planning approval at our first attempt