Anyone won a planning appeal?

[LyraSilvertongue]

We're about to appeal a refused planning application for a first floor extension.
Would be grateful for any tips on getting it through the appeal successfully.

Have you been into your District Council offices and spoken with the planners? They are normally very helpful and will give you advice about what would be acceptable. The decision notice for your refusal should list the reasons as a start point.
Good luck!

sorry - just saw you want to appeal rather than submit a revised application. What reasons/plaaing policies do they give for refusal?

Definitely speak to your planners. They are extremely useful and gave us very good guidance on what they thought would be acceptable and what was not.

Planning office haven't been very helpful tbh. They're keen not to set a precedent in our street so as far as they're concerned out extension is unacceptable however big/small it is.
But it won't be them deciding on the appeal.

The planning guidance says first floor extensions are 'generally unacceptable' but I know of people in nearby streets who have done just that, so they do grant them sometimes. There's no light issue with the neighbours, just an 'outlook' issue. The extension is only 3 metres long.

You need to study your local development plan and find the section on planning and development. If you can find anything in there that would imply that you should be able to extend at 1st floor level, then you could use that as the basis for an appeal. If there is nothing in the Development plan or in any Planning Policy Guidance Notes (which may be national rather than local, not 100% sure on that), it will be difficult for you to appeal. You can't just appeal because you don't like their decision, you have to try to prove that the reasons for their turning it down are unreasonable or against the ideals laid out in some statutory guidance.
Does that make any sense?
Also, has your property been extended before? If not, could you do your extension under permitted development rights?

Whereabouts are you LyraSilvertongue?

Worth checking to see if the properties in nearby streets actually have planning permission, or whether they just built without...

I second Orangina's post. We won an appeal against Lambeth council in London earlier this year. The council didn't like our extension because they claimed it ruined the character of the building - however, it couldnt' be seen by the front of the house (or the back for that matter!) and we found a clause in the UDP that called for further development of already developed areas - ie improving accomodation in areas that are already developed. We're just inside zone 2, so this very much applied to our case. We did file our appeal through our structural engineer who has a planning expert on his team, which helped immensely - I don't think we'd have been able to do it ourselves.

Good luck

Also worth checking whether the previous examples were built with permission but before the local plan/planning guidance currently in use was adopted.

Is unusual to have statement in guidance that first floor extensions are usually unacceptable. However, 3m is rather deep for a first floor extension, although it does depend entirely upon the circumstances of the site i.e. distance to boundaries, neighbouring properties, facing windows and so on. Each case should be determined on its merits in relation to the policies in the local plan and whatever supplementary planning guidance is in existence.

If you are semi-detached for example though, and the extension was 3m deep in close proximity to the party wall with the attached house, then loss of outlook would be a worry. Would all depend upon the level of separation and what impact the extension would have on residential and visual amenity.

If you do appeal though, you can only appeal on the original scheme, you can't amend the scheme and appeal on that...

We won a planning appeal .

the planning officers recommended the plans for permission - howver it had to go to planning comiitee as our local councillor was brought inot it by our neighbours who strongly objected.

At planning commitee the councillors went against the recommedation of the planning officers and refused it.

We appeal . We conatcted out arcitect who put us in contact with someone who did appeals ( basically a planning officer from another council who di appeals as a side line ).

We won !

It is worth noting the following -

You only have 6 months to appeal after refusal.

Yu only have one chanve at the appeal so consider getting someone professional to do it .

We paid our man £1k to do it , a length report etc etc. Well woth it as we would not known where to start.

We were on a good start howvere as the planning officers had Ok'd it but councillors eventually refused it.

Last word.... if your Local Planning Authority are at all accessible, you might be better off re-submitting an amended application, which thry should be able to turn around in about 8-10 weeks, as opposed to fighting the original on appeal.... appeals are currently taking about a year to get through the system...

I think appeals are speeding up though - registration is now only taking about 2 weeks rather than the 5 four months ago, and I believe that dates being offered are now much closer - something to do with the housebuilding problems possibly...

Our appeal was two years ago - we had planning refused in the Feb , june we submitted our appeal , Oct was a site visit by Planning Inspecter, Nov - we had our decision.

Worth while looking at the planning inspectorate website if you have nt done already

www.planning-inspectorate.gov.uk/

Orangina, we're in SW London. We've already re-submitted our plans, cutting the extension by half, and that was turned down too.
I'd say it we have a 50/50 chance of getting it on appeal.

Lyra - which council are you in?

Can't use permitted development because the extension is more than 4 metres from ground level so it has to have permission.
I'm thinking of submitting the appeal myself to save on the pennies. Those of you who have had appeal reports drawn up, what kind of things did they include in them?
Thanks for all the advice

Royal Borough of Kingston. Planning guidance says first floor extensions are 'generally unacceptable' which implies there will be exceptions.

Can you find other guidance within all the guidance notes that you can illustrate you have adhered to? Like respecting neighbours' privacy, or using materials that match existing, or enhancing the character of the building, or maintaining an amenity of some sort.... were your neighbours ok with the development or did they object?

If you can illustrate that you understand why so many 1st floor extensions might be considered "unacceptable" by the LPA, yours is different in the following way(s).....

(blah blah blah).

Maybe it would be worth approaching a planning consultant for his/her opinion on what your chances are on appeal. Might be well worth the money.

Our appeal was by written represtentaion and includined an 8 page report or statement of cases (not including appendices).

The report contained :

1.Introduction - why planning was refused ans what issues the appeal was going to cover.

2.Appeal site and surrounding area - describing site and area.

3.the appeal application - basically what we are asking to build.

4.Planning history - conserbatory and loft conversion previously done .

1. The development plan - relevant polices in the local development plan were highlighted and whow they applied to our site.

1. Consideration of the issues :- covered the key issues that the planning was refused on . Went into great detail about the visual impact , residential amenity, both tied inoto the relevant polices of the local development plan.

There is absolutely no way that we could have written that appeal ourselves - you only have on crack at it and for us it was money well spent .

Captainunderpants - there's no way i can produce a report like that. I thought I could get away with filling in the application form and sending in a few print-outs of other similar developments.

Lyra - have a read of this from the planning inspectorate website , it explains about the differnt types of appeal - ours being a written appeal whih most domestic ones are .

here

The application form is just registering your appeal , if you have a written appeal you must present your case .

Speak with your architect - see what advice they have for you.

I will say that we haven't even started our extension yet and we have paid out LOADS of money so far on plans , fees, appeals, party wall agreements , not one brick removed as yet !

YOu certainly don't need a written report prepared by a private consultant.

I have seen heaps of appeals where the statement is in the form of a letter. Which basically covers the points that captain underpants said.

You should simply make your case - why do you think what you want to build should get permission? Why do you think that the Council's case is not strong?

A list of nearby developments is irrelevant unless you can demonstrate (through research at the planning department) that they set a valid precedent i.e. permission granted within the term of the current plan (or where the previous policy of the superseded local plan is largely similar to that of the current adopted local plan).

You can often access the policies of the local plan on-line these daays. Look at the policies referred to in the reason fro refusal and say why you think that they suggest that permission should be granted rather than refused. I.e. the proposal would NOT have an adverse impact on residential/visual amenity because.... (it would not overshadow neighbouring houses and gardens, it would not appear bulky or overdominant, it would not result in adverse visual impact and so on).

If you appeal and the appeal gets dismissed there is nothing to stop you applying for reduced or modified development and then appealing again if permission refused.

Basically, I have seen many appeals allowed despite the fact that they were submitted by the appellants rather than via a private consultant/agent. BEcause what the Inspector will do is look at the relevant policies, look at your arguments, and work out whether in his opinion, with ref to the policies and the proposal, the decision to refuse was reasonable. For you to put your case across you do not have to write as if you are a chartered planner, or to include extensive technical jargon.

But I can understand completely why appellants do get private consultants to write on their behalf - it does make one feel more confident if there is a "professional" writing in planning speak. Beware though that the quality of written appeal work can vary considerably. I have felt sorry for some appellants who have obviously paid a fortune for a statement that could have been written by themselves, and possibly with fewer glaring errors.