Appealing 'Overbearing decision'

[James-R10]

We applied to build a 5 Bedroom detached house in 2019. 4 bedrooms in house's main footprint and 1 ontop of a garage attached to the side. Planning came back a rejection with the main reason it would in their opinion be 'overbearing' to next door. We submitted a revision to just build a single story garage with a sloped roof and large eaves at the time.

 

Due to change in circumstances we need to have that bedroom without a doubt now and due to my partner now being off work for childcare, it means swallowing £50k of dead money for stamp duty , £10k's to make another property accessible for someone in our families needs and then the moving costs and expenses which makes it pretty much a no-go for a few years. The only real option we have is trying for an extension for the 5th bedroom as per the orignal plans.

 

We looked at the original reasons for denial and why the neighbour (before we knew them) lodged complaints and think we can get past most of them as follows

• Loss of sunlight - For this we did a GPS plan and can prove it wouldn't affect their sunlight. This was not a hard rejection on this but just a note.
• Loss of privacy - We already have less privacy than them due to the angle of their house. This bedroom would have only had windows at the front and back anyway, but we are happy to change these to velux to  reduce neighbours concerns.  This was not a hard rejection on this but just a note.
• Overbearing - The proposed 5th bedroom was noted as less than <5m away from a window at the back of their property in one of their lounges (trees, hedges and fence in between). However, our garage with a very high eaves is already this distance and it's hard to build on the current properties footprint without being too close to them as they have extended massively right up to our boundaries and also not shown in the plans attached is an extremely large full length conservatory that they have. They have other windows in that room so isn't the principal window as well as other lounges. This was the main point for rejection originally. 

 

To me it seems unfair that because they have basically gone to the boundary first because their back garden is narrow and oddly shaped that we can't build 3m away from our own boundary, especially with us making changes to accommodate everything else. 

 

As it was so long ago that we submitted planning we can't appeal and would have to submit again and then appeal if rejected.  Plans for reference below.

My questions are:

1. Am I being an unreasonable neighbour?
2. Has anyone done something similar before? And if so is it worth even fighting or trying to take to appeal? I am scared of wasting money for a resubmission and long appeal process with specialists if the chance of success is low. 

 

 

Edited January 11, 2022 by James-R10

[epsilonGreedy]

10 minutes ago, James-R10 said:

To me it seems unfair that because they have basically gone to the boundary first because their back garden is narrow and oddly shaped that we can't build 3m away from our own boundary, especially with us making changes to accommodate everything else. 

 

 

 

I don't think this line of reasoning will impress the local planning department. Presumably the neighbour's original extension right up to the boundary was deemed reasonable when your plot was open ground. It might be worth looking at the historical planning approval to see if they built 1m beyond what was approved. 

Edited January 11, 2022 by epsilonGreedy

[James-R10]

22 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

I don't think this line of reasoning will impress the local planning department. Presumably the neighbour's original extension right up to the boundary was deemed reasonable when your plot was open ground. It might be worth looking at the historical planning approval to see if they built 1m beyond what was approved. 

 

I get that. I'm more trying to see whether the viewpoint of my ask 1) unreasonable and 2) whether when something has been rejected for being overbearing when it isn't necessarily measurable (assuming it's not an unreasonable ask for someone from a non biased perspective) whether it's worth submitting again and appealing.