Planning Permission

[WinterWillow]

Looking for some advice from some lovely readers.

My husband and I have recently applied for planning permission to convert our garage in to a living space. We plan to remove the garage door and replace this with a normal window and wall matching the rest of our house.

Our neighbours have today received a letter asking them to support or condone the works.....is this normal? I don't think they should have any reason to condone the works, but now I'm overthinking.

Yes, it's normal.

It is very normal. If you are worried they might oppose the work, why not chat to them and allay any concerns they might have?

It sounds like it would be Permitted Development anyway.

Thank you all. It's not that I think our neighbours would object in any way I was just concerned that maybe there was an issue hence them asking the neighbours.

Unfortunately the issue is that when our property was built (it's on the grounds of an old chapel, built 8 years ago) there was a clause in the planning to say that we had to keep our garage and had to have planning to convert it. If this was a 'normal' garage conversion we would not have needed planning at all

We have to prove that we have adequate parking for 2 cars (even though our garage is too small to fit anything other than a smart car) We do have extensive on-road parking facilities outside our house so fingers crossed!

Quite normal to inform neighbours and it would be a good idea to go round and speak to them informally to see if they have any issues. A lot of neighbour problems are caused by people not communicating about things like this. If you are having building works it will affect those nearby so it would make for good neighbourily relations to speak to all your neighbours.

Totally agree. Our neighbours are fully aware of our plans, and a very supportive. In all honesty if ours gets approved, then it would also mean they could pursue similar conversions should they wish to. Ours is the middle of three new build town houses and hopefully we can convert our garage to a living space!