miike

In the LPA case to the appeal Inspector, they actually said it was a good design and they'd be happy to approve it in a different location, just not in this one. But then failed to provide a reason why it shouldn't be approved in this location. I feel a bit sorry for the LPA when they've written a 20 page report throughly analysing an application and why it meets local planning guidelines and should be approved, for the committee to then overrule them and then the LPA has to justify at appeal why actually their original report was wrong.

Turns out its entirely the councillors own decision about whether they are required to recuse themselves or if can be objective about a decision. If you disagree with their decision then it goes to the council who then refer it to the standards committee.. I actually brought up the comments they'd made at the planning committee and said they were pre-determined and should abstain from the vote, their response was just to laugh and smirk at me.

It's the final modified plans, which is essentially 95% of the original and I'm still happy with. In hindsight, I should have appealed for non-determination after 8 weeks. I actually had a far more traditional design submitted at the same time as the appeal was submitted as a backup option - we received pre-app advice saying they had no issues with the new design and would approve it. Can't believe the appeal was actually decided quicker, and I've been advised to expect at least another 3 months before the LPA issues their approval for the new app, not that it makes much difference now.

I did raise a complaint about the councillor duo to the council, they informed me that even if they found and agreed that they had violated rules or the code of ethics, it would then have to be voted on at the standards committee before any action could be taken. Guess who chairs that committee...

Just wanted to tell about my long and hard fought planning battle to finally get approval for anyone else in a similar situation who's losing hope. I bought a plot of land in a development area of a town with FPP for a traditional detached house back in 2020. I then worked with an architect to create a new highly contemporary design that better suited my needs and preferences and submitted it to the LPA, optimistically expecting a decision in 8 weeks time. There were no objections from the local town council nor any technical objections. The plot isn't in a conservation area, AONB or in any other special zone which might cause planning issues. Myself and my planning consultant expected this to be a quick and simple application. My planning consultant had an initial call with the case officer who said they didn't see any issues. All seemed good so far. Then a month later, after chasing the CO again, they came back and said that they had decided that there was no way they could give us approval for the house as it was too out of character for the area and that there was nothing we could do, revise or prove to change their mind. We argued that it wasn't out of character for the area, and that the same case officer had actually themselves approved several applications for contemporary houses nearby and written in their reports that there was no overriding architectural style in the area. They told us to argue it at appeal. At this point, I contacted the head of the LPA who seemed confused why the CO was refusing to allow us to even submit any additional evidence to show that it wasn't out of character. The CO reluctantly relented and said we now could submit additional evidence. I went all out on this - I had drone surveys mapping the whole area showing the house would be completely screened from the road, additional consultants came in to conduct character reviews of the local area, numerous additional architectural drawings etc. Upon informing the CO that all additional evidence would be submitted the following week, they replied and said they'd changed their mind about allowing additional evidence and were going to just reject the app. I contacted the head of the LPA about this to complain a few days later, who replied saying that the CO had actually just quit their job, we would be assigned a new CO and they'd be happy to review any additional evidence. A friendly local councillor passed on information about why we were having so much difficulty with this app - a local married councillor duo, who had a reputation for 'shouting the loudest' to get their own way, were doing everything they could to get the LPA to reject my app. At the town planning committee when my app was discussed, they had said they wanted to prevent all contemporary houses from being built and were apparently outraged that the committee sided with me and voted to raise no objection. This was their revenge. The new CO was far more amenable - he wanted to work with us to tweak the design to something he felt he could then approve. We spent two months going back and forth with designs and changes until he finally said that he was satisfied and would write a report giving us approval. This was about 7 months after the application was originally verified. I was obviously very pleased with this outcome and patiently awaited their report. A month passed before we followed up with them to see how they were getting on. Imagine our surprise when we were informed that this CO had also quit two days ago and we'd now get a third CO. The third CO looked at the original plans and the redesigns and said he much preferred the original plans to the redesigned version and would be happy to approve it with some minor tweaks, which we happily obliged. He then began writing his report recommending approval, and we waited and hoped this one wouldn't quit too. A month passed and we received confirmation his report was ready and just needed to be signed off by their line manager. A few weeks later and we find out there's a problem - the line manager refuses to sign off on it and tells him to re-write it as a refusal, stating 'overlooking' as the reason. This particular line manager is known to be friendly with married councillor duo. We obviously push back very hard on this as we have 3d drone surveys showing that overlooking is not possible, and that there is substantial distance between neighbouring properties which are well above guidelines for new builds anyway. I once again get the head of LPA involved and the line manager agrees to at least to do a site visit with the CO. At the site, the line manager begrudgingly admits defeat and allows the recommendation for approval. It's a little over a year since the app was verified. The journey's not over yet though, as it turned out that a ward councillor had called in the app to committee when it was first submitted but had gone unnoticed due to the multiple CO changes. I felt reasonably confident going into the committee though - we had an officers recommendation for approval, there was no 5 year housing supply in the area so development was favoured, and I wrote a very strong speech putting forward my case. At the committee I gave my speech and then listened the councillors debate. To my horror, this was when I found out that councillors don't actually bother to review planning documents for applications they're voting on - multiple councillors said they couldn't support it because they didn't know what materials would be used (despite all materials been listed numerous times in the docs) and one even saying they couldn't support it based on architectural drawings as they wanted illustrations (but there were multiple CGIs submitted in the docs). In the end, 4 councillors voted to refuse the app (2 were the married couple duo who said nothing during the debate and the other said they 'didn't like it' as their reason) but that was enough to overturn the CO recommendation as so many others abstained. Not willing to give up after how much work had already gone into this, I had my planning consultant start work on the appeal. We submitted a 50 page rebuttal of the committees one reason for refusal (contemporary design would be out of character). The LPA barely even tried to justify the committee decision, they submitted a 3 paragraph argument, seemingly acknowledging that they were fighting a lost cause. 6 months later and just in time for Christmas, we received the Inspectors report that the appeal was allowed. Almost exactly two years to the date after the app was first verified. The two year battle cost me ~£30k and building costs have gone up ~£300k during that time (the GDV has gone up by more than this but it is still painful). It was worth it in the end though to finally be able to build the house I want to build. Just wanted to tell my story for anyone else who's in a similar struggle at the moment and advise you to just keep pushing forward.

Is it not common to have 'granny' annexes that are fully equipped and self contained though?

So this then raises the question of when is an annex not an annex?

The CIL exemption seems to cover residential annexes. I don't think it would be unusual for a 3000sf house to have a 750 sf annex/guest house on the site with all facilities and that seems to be covered by the CIL exemption. So is there any law stopping someone building a 3000sf annex/guest house for their 12000 sf house and receiving the CIL exemption for both? It would be proportional to the above example.

This is just out of curiosity after seeing an estate that's been divided and put up for sale. If you were doing a self-build for a large country estate, and you wanted to build a staff/guest house on the site as well, would this be included in the CIL exemption? What would happen if in the future (after 3 years) this guest house was split from the primary plot and sold as an individual house?

Has anyone gone longer than this waiting for their case officer to give their report? I'm now on month 15 and on my third case officer, with the other two having both quit before issuing their decision. I was told by this current case officer in November that they're recommending it for approval, but as of yet I still haven't got the report. They also found that a councillor called it in to committee if its recommended for approval, so it won't end at the officers report! All three of my officers have had different opinions - 1st was going to refuse, 2nd said they'd approve with alterations and the current likes it as is. So at least that's improved with each subsequent delay! The planning app is just for a redesign of the currently approved house on the plot, so nothing overly complicated.

More info just got published today - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/over-150-million-funding-to-kickstart-self-building-revolution

Amex business platinum is doing 100,000 points for signing up at the moment. About as good as it gets, presume they're doing everything they can to attract people when the main perk (travel) isn't of much use currently. I can give a friends referral for an extra 5000 if you want to sign up.

Fully intend to appeal and confident I'd win given how weak their objection is and easily disprovable it is. Just annoying what a waste of time it's going to be.

Just to update this, the council have said they don't have a problem with the design in itself but they refuse to allow a modern house on this plot because it's a 'traditional setting'. They've said no additional plans or discussion will change their mind on this point so they are going to recommend refusal. They're contradicting the local design guidelines for the area (which specifically describe the area as a 'mix' of different styles and say that modern architecture 'adds interest and intrigue' to the street scene) so it'll be going straight to appeal but it's an additional 6+ months of waiting for a decision now. Very frustrating.

I'm also curious about this and whether letters of support in general carry any weight. If only letters with 'material' objections weigh against an application, is there a similar standard for what would qualify a letter of support to weigh in favour?

I think this is exactly what has happened, early objectors had their 6+ page Magnum Opus submitted with a lot to write but little to say, the latest ones are pretty half hearted. Fortunately, the neighbours have been rallied around points that aren't material issues. They've all focussed on the 'not in keeping with the local area', but our areas design policy specifically allows for high quality contemporary design.

I can deal with a committee so not the end of the world if it comes to that!

During the pp process for your house, how many neighbours objections did you receive? I applied for pp for a contemporary style house in a fairly densely populated part of town and one of the neighbours rallied the locals to put in objections which mostly came through on the last day (about 20 in total). There were about 10 in support to contrast. Objections were mainly about a contemporary house being out of keeping with the area, a lot of what could be referred to as 'rants' rather than material objections. There were no objections from technical consultees. Do weak objections carry more weight when there are multiple people stating it?

Details of the scheme are here - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/10-billion-package-to-build-more-homes-and-level-up-communities ’The fund will support up to 660,000 jobs and unlock up to 860,000 homes.  This includes funding for: a new ‘Help to Build’ equity loan scheme for people who want to build their own homes, providing access to low deposit mortgages’ Another write up about it here - https://www.granddesignsmagazine.com/self-builds/890-help-to-build-scheme

The government announced a few months ago that they would be introducing a new ‘help to build’ scheme similar to the ‘help to buy’ equity loan scheme. Has anyone heard anything more about this or details about how it might be structured? If it works the same as the ‘help to buy’ equity scheme then it would be a terrible deal for self-builders (as most self-builders see a ~30% profit on their build so the equity loan would essentially have a ~30% interest rate in the first year) so I’m hoping it’s not quite the same.