Opposing Planning Permission - Last Minute Advice?
Posted by: JeremyD on 16 November 2005
A large garden adjoining that of my parents [with whom I live] is to be subdivided, leaving the existing house in place and adding five new ones.
The effect of this will be to completely transform our living environment, from one with exceptional quietness, exceptional privacy, exceptional seclusion and an exceptionally green, country-like location to one where all these amenities are harmed. My elderly parents are distraught about this, and there seems to be nothing we can do.
To give you some perspective on the changes that will be made: in summer, it's more or less true to say that if you stand in the middle of our garden and turn through 360 degrees, all you see apart from our house are trees, shrubs and grass.
Similarly, from my ground floor bedroom window, all I could see even in winter (before the council allowed the building of an oddly-angled three storey monstrosity some distance away) was trees, shrubbery and grass.
Everyone who visits us is amazed by the countrified appearance, seclusion and quietness of a house that is reached from a busy main road heading towards the centre of town. This is why my parents bought the house.
The plan will result in a large two storey house being built parallel to and right next to our garden, a double garage being built next to that and another double garage being built next to that, albeit angled away from our garden. The large two storey house associated with the latter garage will be angled so that it doesn't particularly overlook our garden but this arrangement will bring it partially closer to us than necessary, and it will have a commanding view of the side of our "dormer bungalow" and our front yard.
Conveniently for the developers, council members are not allowed to consider photgraphic evidence or, presumably, the evidence of their own eyes. My guess is that this is in order to present a show of objectivity in what is necessarily a subjective decision - but I really don't have a clue how the decision-making process works...
There is a slim, theoretical chance that we could get the council to reconsider. Last Friday were were given six days notice that we could have five minutes at a planning meeting to make our case on behalf of ourselves and the various neighbours who have objected.
It is clear that we, as the most badly affected household, should speak but I have been too depressed to be able to study the legislation and get as au fait with the modus operandi of the planning committee as I had wanted to; my father, who is in his eighties, won't speak because he doesn't trust himself not to get too angry to make a case, which means that either my mother or one of the neighbours will, tomorrow, have to represent the various opponents of the plan in a way that avoids our potential conflicts of interest and succinctly collates the information from our various cases. Five minutes is not much time to make a case. For some reason, this makes me think of movies about the Chinese cultural revolution... Surely this is against the Human Rights Act? Not that this matters since, presumably, we'd need money to pursue a case on this basis.
There is no new information, the council seems happy to bend its rules or interpret them liberally in a commonsense way to accommodate the developer's needs but, so far, has simply discounted our case by claiming that the detrimental effect is not significant enough to refuse planning permission. The only untried approach I've thought of so far is the inconsistency with which the plans treat different neighbours: trees near our boundary will be chopped down to facilitate the plan whereas the council requires trees to be planted along another neighbour's property to mitigate their loss of privacy.
There is a serious and proven road safety issue but the police say that, given the 30 mph speed limit, there are no grounds to oppose the plan. Their belief that people obey the 30mph speed limit around here is touching, no doubt, but not very useful - and it's surprising given that the last fatal accident in the area, IIRC, involved a police car...
So, what I would appreciate from fellow forum members are brilliant suggestions for approaches that we may not yet have considered - or ways of directly tying in what I have said to the most important legislation in a way that we, through our lack of knowledge and time, have no way of doing ourselves.
All serious ideas appreciated, no matter how obvious or offbeat...
[Edited to correct a few spelling errors etc. although I've probably missed worse...]
The effect of this will be to completely transform our living environment, from one with exceptional quietness, exceptional privacy, exceptional seclusion and an exceptionally green, country-like location to one where all these amenities are harmed. My elderly parents are distraught about this, and there seems to be nothing we can do.
To give you some perspective on the changes that will be made: in summer, it's more or less true to say that if you stand in the middle of our garden and turn through 360 degrees, all you see apart from our house are trees, shrubs and grass.
Similarly, from my ground floor bedroom window, all I could see even in winter (before the council allowed the building of an oddly-angled three storey monstrosity some distance away) was trees, shrubbery and grass.
Everyone who visits us is amazed by the countrified appearance, seclusion and quietness of a house that is reached from a busy main road heading towards the centre of town. This is why my parents bought the house.
The plan will result in a large two storey house being built parallel to and right next to our garden, a double garage being built next to that and another double garage being built next to that, albeit angled away from our garden. The large two storey house associated with the latter garage will be angled so that it doesn't particularly overlook our garden but this arrangement will bring it partially closer to us than necessary, and it will have a commanding view of the side of our "dormer bungalow" and our front yard.
Conveniently for the developers, council members are not allowed to consider photgraphic evidence or, presumably, the evidence of their own eyes. My guess is that this is in order to present a show of objectivity in what is necessarily a subjective decision - but I really don't have a clue how the decision-making process works...
There is a slim, theoretical chance that we could get the council to reconsider. Last Friday were were given six days notice that we could have five minutes at a planning meeting to make our case on behalf of ourselves and the various neighbours who have objected.
It is clear that we, as the most badly affected household, should speak but I have been too depressed to be able to study the legislation and get as au fait with the modus operandi of the planning committee as I had wanted to; my father, who is in his eighties, won't speak because he doesn't trust himself not to get too angry to make a case, which means that either my mother or one of the neighbours will, tomorrow, have to represent the various opponents of the plan in a way that avoids our potential conflicts of interest and succinctly collates the information from our various cases. Five minutes is not much time to make a case. For some reason, this makes me think of movies about the Chinese cultural revolution... Surely this is against the Human Rights Act? Not that this matters since, presumably, we'd need money to pursue a case on this basis.
There is no new information, the council seems happy to bend its rules or interpret them liberally in a commonsense way to accommodate the developer's needs but, so far, has simply discounted our case by claiming that the detrimental effect is not significant enough to refuse planning permission. The only untried approach I've thought of so far is the inconsistency with which the plans treat different neighbours: trees near our boundary will be chopped down to facilitate the plan whereas the council requires trees to be planted along another neighbour's property to mitigate their loss of privacy.
There is a serious and proven road safety issue but the police say that, given the 30 mph speed limit, there are no grounds to oppose the plan. Their belief that people obey the 30mph speed limit around here is touching, no doubt, but not very useful - and it's surprising given that the last fatal accident in the area, IIRC, involved a police car...
So, what I would appreciate from fellow forum members are brilliant suggestions for approaches that we may not yet have considered - or ways of directly tying in what I have said to the most important legislation in a way that we, through our lack of knowledge and time, have no way of doing ourselves.
All serious ideas appreciated, no matter how obvious or offbeat...
[Edited to correct a few spelling errors etc. although I've probably missed worse...]
quote:Originally posted by JeremyD:
Thanks for the bats suggestion. We mentioned bats in our original letter of objection but the issue was ignored.
They probably don't roost there.
quote:
It may be the case that a wildlife survey or two should have been done (although this is not clear) but it could be our best hope...
Again, we had one. It was ignored. It has to be a protected species to be taken into consideration. We had everything you mention here.
Now the orchard has gone, so have my apples.
You can ask for an extension of the decision. We didn't fins out about the plans until a few days before the 'deadline'. the council had posted the plans on a post outside the door of the 'owner' of the land - and he lives in s single house cul-de-sac! Of course it turns out that he isn't really the owner. It took a lot of searching, but the true owner is a big local buisiness.
Regards & good luck
Stephen
I'm surprised that you didn't get a letter from the council informing you of the planning application - we had one when a neighbour applied for permission to have a conservatory - although I don't know what the rules are for how close a neighbour should be (we also had a letter re the erection of a mobile phone mast, which we successfully opposed, but the council just gave permission for one 100 yards down the road for which we never got anthing). Might be worth mentioning this - planners have been known to defer decisions - and this might buy some time. Not saying this will work - but might be worth apologising for perhaps appearing unprepared and then explain about not finding out about until late on...
The reduction in value of your parents' property is unlikely to hold any water - if anything the value is likely to go up if this application is passed as that would increase the chance that planning permission could be obtained by your parents to develop their land in a similar way.
Some of us face the exact opposite problem though. In the north west it is virtually impossible to get permission to build new homes - unless you pay a "contribution" to the cost of the buses or cycle lanes, typically done by builders of flats. Who on earth actually thinks that it is sensible only building flats, and not a mixture of properties?
It may not be well known but Prescott et al have set quotas for many local authorities that must not be exceeded - Lancaster's quota ran out 2-3 years ago, Preston's 18 months ago (turning down applications for 1000+ homes), with nothing new allowed until 2006 at the earliest, and the annual quotas will then be greatly reduced from before. But they're supposed to be responsive to public demand
.
The North West Regional Executive (whoever they are) has determined that new houses in the north west should be along a corridor either side of the M62 (at least 30-40 minutes drive from Preston), so if you're somewhere else, tough.
So, any number of badly designed new houses can be built on boring estates somewhere I don't want to live, but a sympathetic (OK, I know I'm biased!) conversion of an existing building is not allowed - although the local planners did make us clock up significant extra bills with the architect making amendments to the plans before they told us we wouldn't get permission. Gits.
Oops - got a bit carried away there (actually, the above is the mild and short version of what I really think!)
The reduction in value of your parents' property is unlikely to hold any water - if anything the value is likely to go up if this application is passed as that would increase the chance that planning permission could be obtained by your parents to develop their land in a similar way.
Some of us face the exact opposite problem though. In the north west it is virtually impossible to get permission to build new homes - unless you pay a "contribution" to the cost of the buses or cycle lanes, typically done by builders of flats. Who on earth actually thinks that it is sensible only building flats, and not a mixture of properties?
It may not be well known but Prescott et al have set quotas for many local authorities that must not be exceeded - Lancaster's quota ran out 2-3 years ago, Preston's 18 months ago (turning down applications for 1000+ homes), with nothing new allowed until 2006 at the earliest, and the annual quotas will then be greatly reduced from before. But they're supposed to be responsive to public demand
. The North West Regional Executive (whoever they are) has determined that new houses in the north west should be along a corridor either side of the M62 (at least 30-40 minutes drive from Preston), so if you're somewhere else, tough.
So, any number of badly designed new houses can be built on boring estates somewhere I don't want to live, but a sympathetic (OK, I know I'm biased!) conversion of an existing building is not allowed - although the local planners did make us clock up significant extra bills with the architect making amendments to the plans before they told us we wouldn't get permission. Gits.
Oops - got a bit carried away there (actually, the above is the mild and short version of what I really think!)