Any experience with neighbour objections via prior approval? (diagram!)

[MsShopper]

We’ve been planning and saving for our Permitted Development full-width single-storey extension on our semi for several years and finally have the architect’s drawings. We previously spoke with the next-door neighbour (non-attached) a few times about our plans and he raised no concerns. But now he’s seen the drawings, he’s not happy. He said he hadn’t “realised how far 6 metres really is” and says it will be “claustrophobic”. (His rear living room has a view out to the side of our house, and unfortunately his house is slightly set forward from us.) He didn’t say outright but I expect he will object when the council writes to him.

I did broach the idea of potential modifications, such as reducing to 5m or even 4.5m. But he shut down on me and made excuses to finish the conversation. Tbh, he got very cross when I said that we could do 3m without consulting him. (I said it almost sheepishly, not trying to be confrontational - I am very conflict averse!) I saw him again yesterday and tried to approach him, but he bolted inside. He’s normally fine with me/us, albeit quite reserved.

I don’t know what to do now. If we carry on and submit the current drawings to the council, is it likely that his objection will be upheld? Or do we try to mitigate it by reducing the length to, say, 4.5m and hope for the best? I don’t want to ruin our neighbourly good will either, but unfortunately a 3m extension wouldn’t give us the space we need, so we’d probably have to move instead.

Just wondering if anyone else has been in this situation? Any thoughts or advice gratefully received!

I would be extremely surprised if his objection had any consequences for your plan. You know he’s not happy, but looking at your diagram I really don’t think he’s being reasonable as it does really affect him.

I'd continue with your 6m plan submission, even if he did object it's very unlikely to cause an issue; he's being unreasonable to shut down communication when you've bent over backwards to communicate and gone so far as to suggest reducing extension size. He's being a bit of a plonker.

Thank you both so much. I was really starting to worry we were being CFs for going for the full 6m.

I will try to talk to him again if I see him around next week, but if he won’t engage, we’ll carry on. I will update again once we’re at the other side of the prior approval process for anyone else facing this issue. Wish me luck!

I doubt that his objection will hold much water, but just sitting here looking out of the rear of my house and if NDN built an extension that was 6m long, that would block my view of the woods behind my house to that of a brick wall - I’d be furious TBH.

TBF a 6m extension is absolutely massive on a house that size (unless your drawing is really off in terms of scale). It looks like you are practically doubling the original footprint but he won't really be able to object.

Thanks, I appreciate the alternative viewpoints. The neighbour's view (at a 45-degree angle) at the moment is of our dilapidated wooden side gates and whatever he can see above that. (Our attached neighbours' higher fence possibly, and then it's just tops of houses, a couple of treetops and sky.)

The height of our extension (3m high) vs the current height of the fence etc will have an impact, and I do understand that. I just hoped he'd be willing to discuss it with us and perhaps find a solution he'd be okay with, rather than completely shut down.

The 6m added footprint is big, I appreciate. We are open to scaling it back a bit. But essentially, if we can, we're trying to create an additional room on the ground floor, not just make the existing (poky) kitchen extension a bit bigger.

PS Oops yes - scale is off a fair bit! House including current small extension is around 12m long.

FYI that extension isn't permitted development. You can't do a wraparound extension like that under PD. Look up the rules for side extensions and you'll see how yours is also classified as a side extension, and isn't permitted because it would be more than half the width of the house.
If I was your neighbour I would object too, it's massive.

Oh sorry didn't see that the existing projection is an extension and not original. My bad.

No one can object simply because it's massive. He might not like it but to an objection that holds any sway at all it needs to be a legitimate reason not just 'it's big and I don't like it'.

In my area, you'd be refused based on the impact on the neighbours. 6m is a LOT when you're attached or so close as to share a driveway. But every council is different.
What does your attached neighbour think?

Attached neighbour isn't bothered, but it will barely make any difference to their view. They have an outside loo and store beyond their own half-width extension (which I didn't bother including on the diagram), and our new extension would back onto that. Our architect knows the local council well and didn't seem concerned that they would have an issue, but that was before we knew the non-attached neighbour's potential objection. (I might ask his advice actually!)

With it being a single story extension I don’t think it will block much light out to his house. I’ve never met anyone who was happy about neighbours building extensions , people don’t like change , he’ll get over it.

On what grounds can he object though?

Any reason you are straightening the gate, rather than leaving it as a nice symmetrical layout?

Put yourself in his position then answer the question. Would you be happy or object ?

When we applied for our current pp I never spoke to the neighbours about it, they saw the yellow notice the council put up outside on the street and then they can view the proposal/ plans on the councils website. If they feel the want to object then they do it to the council and not me. Going round to neighbours and discussing what you plan to do can just give you grief and hassle ( if your a bit timid) I’ve never bothered discussing it with neighbours at any house.

How far from your boundary will the extension be? With his house further forward, that will result in a pretty big projection to the rear of his property.