Havkey100

Yes, he seems to do 5 or so visits in a day then write them up over a few weeks.

Site visit now done. The inspector was there for about 10 minutes, not sure if that's good or bad! Checked the kitchen/diner view and the dual aspect bedroom. Went outside and asked about the intentions for replacing the lleylandi, which will be a dry stone wall with native planting. He seems to take 3 or so weeks to issue a report. Fingers crossed.

A few thoughts. Just thinking about what the case officer might say: 1. Very close to rear boundary. What's behind the house? 2. Turning for vehicle will be required if it is a new build. They assume people will not reverse onto their drive. 3. Front garden will not count as private amenity space. Looks tight. Here it would be 70sqm for a 4 bed. What will you have? 3. Planner may say it is contrived as it does look a bit shoehorned in. Are there similar builds in the area?

Indeed. We had an objection from someone who claimed our proposal would lead to an overdevelopment of the locale. That same person lives in their parents old house because their parents built a new house next door. The irony was clearly lost on them. What they really meant was that they don't want someone they don't see a "local" building in their area.

Have spent a lot of time on it. As many others have experienced, we just want a fair shake at it. It seems we are being held to the whims of a personal opinion from one person, given our case officer was actually happy with even our original design. We made several changes to offset the concerns of the authorising officer, but they pretty much ignored them. I did have this from the inspectorate: "In the interests of clarity, and having regard to the appellant's initial correspondence and grounds of appeal, would the appellant produce a list of the plans, with references, it wishes the Inspector to consider, and which it considers was subject of the Council's determination. " Maybe that says a lot about the lack of clarity from the council on which version of the plans their report was based on. I have clarified again, which aligns with my appeal documents.

We have an appeal inspector now and hopefully will have site visit. On the bright side, I think we have somebody who can bring a balanced view to the application. Having read a similar one the inspector decided on, they had this to say on the 12m rule we are being subjected to: 'The amendments made to the previously rejected scheme are noted, as is the appellant’s contention that the western facing wall could no longer be regarded as ‘blank’ in terms of the Council’s TAN3. I share the appellant’s view that ‘the 12m minimum distance is guidance rather than strict regulation and each application can be reviewed on its own merit and the local impacts assessed’. Given we are at 11.5m, at an angle, don't have a blank elevation and much much better than guidance on the 25 degree rule I would hope that we can reach a similar accordance.

LPA response is no change to their assessment, but they recognised the incorrect versions of the plans had been referenced in their report. Final comments are open until 12th November. Still awaiting a site visit date from the Planning Inspector.

Yes, already done as recommended by the planning consultant.

Inspectorate have come back to me asking that I attach the relevant plans from the refusal notice, which I thought I had. It seem not, the refusal notice is referencing the outdated drawings that were superseded and formed part of the re-consultation we had to go through. I have now had to go back to the planning department and ask what the process should be. I am not sure if they need to issue a corrected decision notice and new circulated report! Can't make this up.

Any particular reason for the delay?

Planning appeal now submitted. Speaking with the consultant we are looking at 4-6 months of a delay based on what they are seeing in the area. The consultant is confident that we have a very strong basis for appeal. On prepping the appeal it really puts into cold hard light how the planning department have had to work hard to find a reason to refuse permission. They are required to apply an overall planning balance and should have given weight to the sensitivity we had placed across the design, orientation, scale and mass. Instead they have ignored every area where we excelled in design and effectively pointed to one subsection of a technical advise note, made a subjective judgement that it should be applied, and then used that as the entire basis for refusal. From their own guidance: "Determining planning applications and considering enforcement investigations is a process of balancing and mitigating the impacts of development. In order to do this, Planning Officers apply varying degrees of weight to different aspects of the development depending on the level of harm. Therefore, it should not be assumed that a proposal which fails to meet all, some, or even any of the above tests would be refused. An application would only be refused when, on balance and in the public interest, the cumulative impact of the development outweighs the benefits." Hopefully we will have better news around Christmas...

Thanks all. Joe, on your point, the issue we faced was the following rejected application nearby: xxxx Lane streetscene appear to exclusively consist of two storey dwellinghouses. Whilst the proposed dwelling would contain a first floor, it is proposed to be constructed in a dormer bungalow style, and would be of a reduced height when compared to the host. There do not appear to be any other properties constructed in a similar style in the immediate area, and in this respect, it is considered that the proposed dwelling would appear as an out of character addition. This is 30m from our site and the planners stated clearly they preferred 2 storey dwellings 2 years ago. We raised this with the case officer. Absolutely no consistency

Formal refusal received today. Have already got my appeal document drafted and ready for a review by a planning consultant and our architect. The planning consultant had already initially reviewed the decision and feels it is all a bit bizarre. We are mulling whether or not to in parallel submit a revised design, but given we believe we currently comply with all policies, we may still find we are refused again without a compelling reason based on policy.

Really can't make this up now. The district councillor referred this to the planning committee. The chair of said committee has now rejected this request because: "3-desion does not appear finely balanced" So mistakes in the officers report on the height of the proposal in relationship to the neighbour, reliance on a subjective element of planning policy to argue overbearing effects, contradictory statements in the report around compliance with policy, support of the parish is not enough....

Good news is that my district councillor is calling it to planning committee.