Third Party input into Planning Appeals

[Ferdinand]

A quick procedural one.

 

Can Third Parties give any input into Appeal Hearings?

 

Clearly there is only a right of appeal for the party that had their Planning Application refused, but if the applicant Appeals to the Planning Inspectorate, can a third party make a written submission?

 

I ask because my Council just lost an Appeal for an application refused on parking and amenity grounds for a large HMO conversion in an area of terraced streets, and the Inspector accepted what is patently a dodgy "available parking" survey from the applicant. IIRC it even included several reserved disabled spaces as part of generally available parking.

 

The Council lost because:

 

1 - The Inspector accepted said survey.

2 - The inspector did not account for the loss of 23 offstreet parking spaces leased by the previous owner of the building (Medical Centre) to relieve the parking problem, which the survey identified as currently available in the survey, but which are about to have houses built on them.

3 - The inspector relied mainly on calculations that the two-person room occupancy routinely used by that LL was a "worst case" to work out new vehicles.

 

In effect istm that the Council perhaps didn't sweat the detail properly. A two page demolition of the Parking Survey and a proof of the existing LL policies would have done it.

 

It will be chaos, but now this bird has flown - short of a High Court action or restrictions through HMO Licensing.

 

Hence my question above.

 

Plus one other - is a subsection specifically for "Planning Appeals" appropriate in this part of Buildhub? Might be useful.

 

Ferdinand

Edited December 2, 2016 by Ferdinand

[ToughButterCup]

3 hours ago, Ferdinand said:

[...]

Plus one other - is a subsection specifically for "Planning Appeals" appropriate in this part of Buildhub? Might be useful.

 

Ferdinand

 

Maybe.

I'd be happy with a pinned checklist of resources linked to planning appeals, like this for example

 

[Ferdinand]

Spoke to the Council.

 

It feels that they don't want their nearly-made decision on a further application for an intensification of the development derailing by someone pointing out in writing that the Parking Survey they have accepted that allegedly demonstrated around 40 on street spaces within 100m is now out of date because about 35 parking spaces it relied on are no longer available because they have gone or because demand has increased :-).

 

The Appeal which was approved for the less intensive development also accepted the same inaccurate parking survey. Not sure where that leaves it for the new application, which claimed the Appeal Approval as a legal demonstration that there is no parking problem. Shades of King Canute !

 

Heh.

 

F

[ToughButterCup]

1 hour ago, Ferdinand said:

The Appeal which was approved for the less intensive development also accepted the same inaccurate parking survey. Not sure where that leaves it for the new application, which claimed the Appeal Approval as a legal demonstration that there is no parking problem.

 

Write and point out that: '... the claim is false because...' and have the application called in and discussed at committee

 

[Ferdinand]

Here they do consider comments up until the decision is made, though if it is going to committee you can miss getting proper attention if you miss the deadline for the circulation pack or the final freeze of the officer report.

 

Extra bits of paper on the day confuse many illprepared committee members unless there is an engaged Councillor to lead them by the hand.

 

Discovered that when they asked us on three separate occasions to delay our planning app because they wanted more time, and extra comments kept getting added, though ultimately our application was objector proof because it was very thorough. We had a petition and Lib Dems going ape (end of Nimbyworld leaflet 3 days before the meeting to place attention-seeking councillor at the head of the mob in the local paper), but no facebook campaign.

 

I am planning to frame my objection in terms of the parking report being rendered out of date by subsequent events rather than mention the appeal as that will just stir up defensive thoughts and make them think about arguing that the Appeal wrong decision means they are bound by it now.

 

Ferdinand

Edited December 2, 2016 by Ferdinand

[Temp]

I have fought a planning appeal as part of a third party action group and I'm afraid applicants frequently submit and get away with all kinds of dodgy surveys.

 

Just an example... the applicant submitted a bird survey. We hired our own expert who requested the raw data used to compile the survey. He stated that he had never seen such a "clamatous data set". The logs indicated that two surveys that were meant to be done at different times were done at the same time so one man was trying to count birds on the site from a distance (to avoid disturbing the birds) while another was walking around the site disturbing them. The site was a feeding and nesting site for a protected bird. The appeal inspector allowed the development but the secretary of state called it in and stopped it.

 

Third parties can apply for a special status at appeals but I forget what that status is called sorry. It allows you to call your own expert. Fankly the inspector will probably ignore any survey you do yourself unless you have the right initials after your name.

Edited December 3, 2016 by Temp

[joe90]

Our neighbour claimed that our new entrance we were applying for as part of our build was "unsafe" and the council simply believed him without checking, eventually I got the highways dept to visit and they told the appeal inspector it was safe and complied with standards set down by highways. 

[Ferdinand]

42 minutes ago, joe90 said:

Our neighbour claimed that our new entrance we were applying for as part of our build was "unsafe" and the council simply believed him without checking, eventually I got the highways dept to visit and they told the appeal inspector it was safe and complied with standards set down by highways. 

 

An UNSAFE claim strikes me as meaningless without some evidenced or carefully argued basis i.e. FUD.

 

Just gone to the trouble of measuring one of the proposed flats using the area tool on the council website and the living space is a third less than the recommended space standard in council policy. For some reason the area of each flat is not mention on the application, nor is the overall internal area of the development.

 

These people seem to be aspirational tenant exploiting bastards. I reckon the development as proposed will give a return to investment of 20-25% at least.

 

One and a half barrels and ideally a call in to committee required, I think.

 

Ferdinand

 

Edited December 3, 2016 by Ferdinand

[joe90]

Yes I challenged the council to produce evidence that our new entrance was unsafe and they simply ignored me. Be careful of going to committee, we did this after seeking advice from a councillor who supported our case.  At the site meeting ( I was not allowed to talk to anyone but was there to earwig) I could here various members arguing with the planning officer about how resonable  our application was, however at the council meeting they had all turned against us and to a person voted to reject our proposal ( and the councillor who supported it initially would not look me in the eye), we heard on the grapevine after that they had been "got at" . Call it conspiracy theory but !!!. I really would like to take the council to task now that after two and a half years of fighting and god knows how much money was spent the appeal to the Secretary of State that we did found in our favour on all aspects, in fact citing that the council had not abided by their own policies.( Rant over ).

[Ferdinand]

Indeed .. the space standards are Guidance, and the parking is the biting edge.

 

However, I have seen previous Applications refused on this basis.

 

Given that these guys are rack 'em and stack 'em merchants from outside the area trying to extract the most money from my town by walking the edge of the rules, and who are quite willing to ignore the rules / law and exploit others when they can get away with it, I am quite happy to make their life difficult.

 

Unfortunately our council are not the most effective in this game.

 

They have a conversion just across the road in this ridiculously congested area for parking where their scheme included 3 off street parking spaces. Less than 2 years later those parking spaces have been fenced off as a private garden.

 

Elsewhere they have had properties occupied before fulfilling Planning Conditions, and required complaints and enforcement to require them to create their promised off street parking spaces.

 

Such freeloaders are not welcome here imo.

 

Ferdinand

 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2016 by Ferdinand

[PeterW]

6 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

They have a conversion just across the road in this ridiculously congested area for parking where their scheme included 3 off street parking spaces. Less than 2 years later those parking spaces have been fenced off as a private garden.

 

Check the planning permission - mine had a restriction from highways that there has to be a turning space maintained in perpetuity as marked on the plans. They may have done the same around the parking on that one.   

[Ferdinand]

39 minutes ago, PeterW said:

 

Check the planning permission - mine had a restriction from highways that there has to be a turning space maintained in perpetuity as marked on the plans. They may have done the same around the parking on that one.   

 

It is conditioned to be built "in accordance with (identified plan)".

 

It would be an interesting enforcement case, because beyond the fence that now blocks off the "parking spaces" it is questionable whether they have any legal right to access the spaces with a car;  it looks like the access *may* be by dint of long use. That of course is not a relevant consideration where PP is concerned  , though that is not the sort of thing i would expect District Council to pick up every time.

 

Potentially a veritable Knot of Gordion style tangle should someone complain to enforcement  .

 

Ferdinand

 

Edited December 3, 2016 by Ferdinand