Planning refused: entrance deemed too grand!

[albion2021]

1 hour ago, scottishjohn said:

If there is already an access --this probably what they are getting at --they don,t like allowing you to make new or more access  to public roads 

 

was it the planners or the roads that complained about it -there will no doubt be a roads dept document somewhere in the planning outling how they want it to be 

 I know here any gate has to be min of 6m back from road to allow you to be off road when opening and closing gate  and they also insit on a drain channel so no water goes onto road from your land at the junction -

There is an existing entrance but not an existing access track. It was only the LPA objecting to the new positioning.

 

General opinion here seems to be that the LPA will issue another refusal unless I agree to use the existing entrance but as it reduces the visibility, I fear highways could then object instead.

1 hour ago, IanR said:

 

The LPA were pretty clear on their direction. This was your chance to have amended your drawings prior to the decision. They don't come back to you with proposals, they just give reasons why what you are asking for does not fit the policies they follow, you have to go back to them with new proposals that find the compromise.

That went over my head, I thought providing examples of others they had recently approved and the requirement to be consistent in decisions was enough. 

 

Planning consultant said he would take a look over the weekend but really appreciate all the advice & opinions in the meantime. 

[Ferdinand]

On 20/05/2021 at 11:15, IanR said:

If the furthest internal point of the house is more than 45m from the road you need to provide access for a 12t pumping appliance, and if they have to come on to the property by more than 20m, you have to provide a turning space.

 

 

 

Or an acceptable alternative, such as sprinklers or a dedicated water lake for the Firemen.

[Ferdinand]

Quote

I fear highways could then object instead.

 

I would phone up  highways and ask them for an idea of what would be acceptable.

 

They should have been consulted, and there may either be a name on the response or you can phone up the department and ask for the Highways bod dealing with your Planning App no.

 

Be ready with your necessary questions and a conversation plan. You may offer to send a detailed email, or a summary (which you have ready) 'while I am talking to you', and they may find 15 minutes on the spot to get rid of you rather than have to process your followup. 

 

You need a sufficient steer not an outright answer. Which you then confirm by email to help the bod remember when the Council asks again next time, at which point you email them again briefly to remind them that they are the person to deal with it and what their answer is going to be when the Council asks.

 

All wrapped up in suitable words so that they know they are being helpful not manipulated.

 

The best person to teach you the conversational skills to do this process *may* be Lord Mandelbrot  ?.

.

[joe90]

1 hour ago, Ferdinand said:

I would phone up  highways and ask them for an idea of what would be acceptable.

I hope you have better luck than me, regarding a planning dispute over access highways were not interested, took me nearly 6 months of badgering to get them to site, when they arrived asked what the problem was and after I explained they told me they could not comment as it was a planning matter FFS eventually got them to respond by saying they had no objection, that’s the best I could yet put of them......

[Ferdinand]

10 hours ago, joe90 said:

I hope you have better luck than me, regarding a planning dispute over access highways were not interested, took me nearly 6 months of badgering to get them to site, when they arrived asked what the problem was and after I explained they told me they could not comment as it was a planning matter FFS eventually got them to respond by saying they had no objection, that’s the best I could yet put of them......

 

i suspect it is an officer by officer thing.

 

We found highways helpful, yet we also had a need to deal with a drainage outflow at the demand of the LA, to where water already drained (but we were concentrating to one place) and the County Officer who had that one (because it was a nature reserve the other side) was a notorious "do it on the last day" merchant who sat on his bottom rather than talking in advance.

 

That made the PP difficult because the District was demanding an agreement before PP. And at second hand there is no SLA that could be insisted on, so he was entitled to sit on his arse scratching his bits until the last minute..

 

My Planning Consultant handled the conversations.

 

Ferdinand

 

[SuperPav]

I am not a 'professional' planning consultant but have had some successes with shall we say, less favourable LPAs and some quite painful applications.

 

Based purely on what I can see in the thread, the grounds for rejection are "valid" in so much as I wouldn't recommend appealing it. It does to a certain extent depend on the dialogue you've had with the LPA throughout the planning process.

The fact that this is the only thing the application was rejected on at this stage is quite positive as it's easily overcome.

 

My recommended strategy would be: 

1) Call the planning officer, get their exact preferences and reason for the preferences for the following: Location of access and track, appearance of entrance & gate, appearance of track, appearance of fencing.

2) Call the highways officer and tell them that the LPA prefers to use the other access for the above reasons ^. State that it is an existing access, and that therefore you don't expect them to have any concerns with re-using it to serve just a single dwelling, but thought you'd check with them before amending a resubmission. Assuming they OK this, proceed to point 3.

3) If you feel very strongly about one of the factors in point 1), then pick ONE and keep it as you wish, but revert the others to the LPA's recommendation. Personally I would probably revert them all to the recommended proposal unless it really really ruins the actual dwelling for you. 

4) Resubmit the application as a freebie, with a properly drafted supporting statement which identifies that the grounds for rejection have all been addressed through collaborative engagement with the LPA and Highways Agency. This should use language that essentially says "approval is now a given" while giving all the credit to the LPA for coming up with it.

 

If it is AGAIN rejected on some spurious grounds, you have a very strong case for appeal, and I suspect it'll go your way if handled properly. 

 

Once the above is done, forget about the access, focus on the dwelling, nail that, and then worry about access later. It's always easier to tweak/adjust the appearance of that later on, whether with a full application or using PD rights or "the ask for forgiveness method".

[ToughButterCup]

15 minutes ago, SuperPav said:

.... the grounds for rejection are "valid" in so much as I wouldn't recommend appealing it

.... the only thing the application was rejected on at this stage is quite positive as it's easily overcome.

... a properly drafted supporting statement which identifies that the grounds for rejection have all been addressed through collaborative engagement with the LPA and Highways Agency. This should ... giv[e] all the credit to the LPA for coming up with it.

...Once the above is done, forget about the access, focus on the dwelling, nail that, and then worry about access later. It's always easier to tweak/adjust the appearance of that later on, whether with a full application or using PD rights or "the ask for forgiveness method".

 

I'll remember that. Excellent turn of phrase.

[albion2021]

Little update…

 

The planning consultant never got back to me so I muddled on, taking on board all your advice and suggestions I resubmitted the application using the existing gateway but reserved all matters to overcome the objections to the appearance and omitted the fencing. 
 

Permission has been granted ? but the planning officer has imposed a condition removing various permitted development rights, including Part 2 class A - fencing and gates ?
 

Does this condition only apply to the red line area of my application and not to the rest of the land? In which case I could still fence the track because the fence would be beyond the 3.7m wide red line area allocated to the track
 

I am considering appealing the earlier decision regarding the siting 

[Dave Jones]

Can you no put the fencing in now under PD before implementing the permission ?

[IanR]

5 hours ago, albion2021 said:

Permission has been granted

 

Congratulations!

 

5 hours ago, albion2021 said:

but the planning officer has imposed a condition removing various permitted development rights, including Part 2 class A - fencing and gates ?

 

There's a sniff of over-reach there. They will have given a justification for this in the Officer's report. This may be able to be challenged if they do not have a good justification.

 

6 hours ago, albion2021 said:

Does this condition only apply to the red line area of my application and not to the rest of the land? In which case I could still fence the track because the fence would be beyond the 3.7m wide red line area allocated to the track

 

Yes, the conditions only cover the planning unit defined by the red boundary on your application. If the red boundary defined the track, then that does suggest there is nothing stopping you fencing the neighbouring field, from the track.

[albion2021]

7 hours ago, IanR said:

 

Congratulations!

 

 

There's a sniff of over-reach there. They will have given a justification for this in the Officer's report. This may be able to be challenged if they do not have a good justification.

 

 

Yes, the conditions only cover the planning unit defined by the red boundary on your application. If the red boundary defined the track, then that does suggest there is nothing stopping you fencing the neighbouring field, from the track.

Thank you!
 

I am trying to be objective but I feel this is really unreasonable.
 

In the decision notice it states the removal of the fencing rights is to protect the appearance of the countryside, The fencing is 1.2m high and screened from public view by the 15m tall boundary hedges.

 

This is what the planning officer has written in the report regarding the access and fencing:

Details of the proposed access will be for a RM. However, following the recently refused application the red line has been adjusted to allow for an alternative siting of the access close to the southern boundary of the field where it can also utilise the existing field access.
The siting will benefit from the existing hedgerow screening whilst also minimising the impact of a double row of post and rail ranch type fencing. However, as at the farm opposite (the mixed use arable farm and industrial estate with the prison like gate), it would be preferable to limit fencing altogether, and allow horses (aka 1/2 ton flight animals) to freely graze both sides of the access without impediment  (from escaping onto the 60mph road every time the gate is opened), thus further minimising the visual impact of the access on the landscape. Subject to the above being agreed as part of the RM, and to details of the gated entrance treatment being sympathetic, the siting of the access is considered acceptable and would be considered to minimise its impact on the countryside in accordance with Policies CS1, CS7 and CS12, and Para 170 of the NPPF which states that decisions should contribute to and enhance the natural and local environment by recognising the intrinsic character and beauty of the countryside.

 

He has also stated that he would like me to reduce the size of the garden in the RM, but being an outline application the fee was paid based on the sq m of redline area which with the track amounted to nearly £3000, surely they can’t accept the fee and then insist I reduce the area?

 

I think this is going to be an uphill battle ?

[IanR]

19 minutes ago, albion2021 said:

...minimising the impact of a double row of post and rail ranch type fencing.
... it would be preferable to limit fencing altogether, and allow horses to freely graze both sides of the access without impediment 

...thus further minimising the visual impact of the access on the landscape.

 

I feel the Planning officer has a romantic notion of the "open countryside" and does not appreciate that in private ownership it needs to metaphorically earn its crust.

 

It is unreasonable to expect a paddock to be open to an access track - there are 101 reasons why that wouldn't be acceptable, and it is unreasonable to categorise the open countryside as absent of fences and suggest that they are contrary to the intrinsic character and beauty of the countryside. It is also unreasonable to label post and rail fencing as "ranch type" suggesting it is alien to the UK countryside, being of a type only used on large North American horse and cattle ranches.

I'd include the agriculturally typical post and rail in your Reserved Matters application and set your argument out. I can't imagine they'll refuse on that basis as I don't feel their position is defensible on appeal.

 

Maybe an approach on the garden is to split what you currently have proposed into a smaller garden, close to the house and then the rest as an area of amenity land. It still allows you a residential use, but restricts the area that is considered as residential curtiledge, so from the LPA perspective it keeps the residential paraphernalia (sheds, rubbish bins, clothes lines, hard landscaping etc.) closer to the dwellinghouse.