Council informally says unlikely to approve deconversion

[Letsdoit123]

Hi, just looking for a bit of wisdom here.
We own two flats in a converted house, via a prelim enquiry the council had said that we need to submit a full planning permission and have a very clear justification as to why we would want to convert back into one dwelling, also that would be against their strategy to increase small dwellings in the area.
Has anyone had/done that before and what was the outcome? Just wondering what the chances are to be approved on that basis.

If your pre-app advice says that you're unlikely to get approval, then you're highly likely to be refused planning permission.
It is rare for the advice given at pre-app to change because the officer would be considering the same policies, so would generally come to the same conclusion.

yes, I would anticipate this to be a massive hurdle for you.

What is your evidence for conversion being the best option?

This is where I am at a loss as to what evidence I need to have. Our justification for conversion is we are a family of three, currently living in the ground floor 1-bed flat, my toddler sleeps with me as no other bedroom, the top floor has two beds but the second one is in the loft accessible via stairs, I can’t leave my 2 yeard old alone on the floor and sleep in the loft, also if we decide to have another child, we will need the space. I understand their logic, the housing crisis, etc., but it seems silly to go through the hassle of selling both flats and moving to a house when we would simply need to knock down an internal wall and convert the upstairs kitchen to a bedroom. Might have to move though by the sound of things.

Your personal circumstances is irrelevant. The housing plan is the housing plan and if they have decided X amount of homes of a certain size that's it.
It can seem to go against common sense but there it is.

Unfortunately (and even though I can totally understand what you're saying as a mum) your hassle of selling and moving is not the planning department's concern. They would rather have two housing units in their district than one, so the fact that it's easier for your family to convert them into a larger home for you will not make them more likely to approve your scheme.
I really would try to look at finding a great family home that will work for you, and sell the flats instead of potentially losing the battle.

Thanks, all. I appreciate your responses, as said above it goes against common sense but there you go.

Council tax on two dwellings is more income for them?

I think that they are not taking your personal circumstances into consideration at all as that is not relevant to any planning application……harsh but just policy …..sell up and move on

A bit risky but can you informally change the layout and keep the title split? If you're the freeholder I don't really see it's anyone else's business until you sell

Not willing to go down that route, we will need to convert the kitchen upstairs into a bedroom to make it work for us, and then if we decide to sell, convert back to the original layout. More hassle! The saddest thing is we love this house, for us it was a forever house!

Yes, for sure and looking at the policy, it’s also the number of large houses with one person living in them due to the ageing population in the area, reducing the proportion of small dwellings.

Stripping out a kitchen and turning into a bedroom isn't too much work. Just keep all the pipework in and board over? Not an expert but i can't see this costing more than about £2k to strip it out. Turning it back into a kitchen is a bit of an arse ache, sure but no more than moving house?

True!

If you do it without planning permission you can land yourself in heaps of trouble. I'd just sell up, sell both flats individually or sell one and rent the other one out

We did this and we were warned about our local authority strategy.
We applied anyway and got planning.
I would argue it's good for the community to have a mix of housing and a mixed demographic

Interesting, maybe we should go ahead and see what happens? What was your justification, did you use a professional like a lawyer or something to argue your case?

If you are going to use a professional you want a Planning Consultant not a lawyer. RTPI accredited.

If it is your ‘forever’ home then just convert it but keep it as the two dwellings. Conversion sounds minimal as others have said.

No. We just put in an application to convert two flats back into a single family home.
Our road is a mixture of bedsits, flats and family homes.
When planning notified our neighbours, one of them (who lives in a flat), even wrote in to applaud what we were doing !
Our flats were originally Victorian houses, so we were re-converting them, as it were.
Maybe that made a difference?
We also employed an architect who had experience of this.

There's a housing shortage and councils are under massive pressure from national government to increase not decrease households.
Some areas now than others.
They have huge targets and funding and policies all geared towards increasing not decreasing households... So the achievable simplicity of the plan for you doesn't outweigh all that, despite it just being a wall and a kitchen etc.

Sympathies op, but also sympathise with any council trying to achieve targets (set for good reason) while working with our ill designed planning system and laws, ruthless developers, and government (public) pressure, while under funded and hog tied for creative solutions.

Have you had professional advice? Architect / Planning Consultant etc should be able to advise you and they should know the Planning Officers too.

Thank you, this is useful to know.

Ours is a Victorian house too, the only one on the street that has been converted to flats back in the 80s.

Not yet but will do, thank you.

I would imagine that it might be economically better for you to sell the two and buy one house as I would expect they will be worth more separately than as one, but could be wrong.
Remember capital gains tax too when you sell.