Planning rejected by highways

[Badger]

I have put in for planning to build a 3 bedroom bungalow on a menage and have been refused planning. My mum and dad own own a dormer bungalow with stables and paddock and have given me the paddock land. The reason given by highways is that the access road has obscure views on the exit onto the public pavement and side road and the extra traffic will cause a hazard to pedestrians. Seeing that I live with my parents I find this very hard to take. As anyone had any issues like this and how is the appeals procedure?

[Badger]

Also would it be possible to put in for planning without onsite parking saying that you would park on the side road if this is the only thing stopping development as it is only 25m down a private access road?

[Ferdinand]

Did you mean manege?

 

The extra traffic excuse sounds spurious but common, Two to three traffiv movements a day will not block up anything as far as I can see.

 

You probably need to look at providing appropriate visibility splays, depending on the type of road it is. Posting a scale site location plan may help us comment - but remove the identifying information. Depending on layouts, that could mean redesigning your entrance.

 

Perhaps go back to your architect / planning consultant and see what they say, or have a phone conversation with the Planning Officer.

 

I believe you get a second free go, or an Appeal, now that you have been refused.

F

Edited July 25, 2017 by Ferdinand

[ToughButterCup]

52 minutes ago, Badger said:

I have put in for planning to build a 3 bedroom bungalow on a menage and have been refused planning.

[...]

As anyone had any issues like this and how is the appeals procedure?

 

Welcome. Its sad to see a first post based on frustration.

 

I don't have much time just now, but here's what you can do to start

• First rule: don't give up until you have been refused at Appeal
• Research the Appeals process yourself
• Read this board in a focused way: do a search for Appeals (Home>Search>'Appeal' or 'Appeals')
• Read your LPA documentation carefully, then search for similar refusals in your LPA
• Take professional advice: be very careful to research the adviser thoroughly before engaging him or her  look for the advice given during similar applications
• Read widely about the local context. (Other members here (BH) would question that advice) 

I will try to find our checklist on preparing an Appeal. I can't remember where it is, but I will spend a bit of time today looking for it.

 Most important of all, do not give up. 

It took us 15 years of asking, wheedling, reading and thinking about it - not to say dreaming of the day when.... 

 

Finally, you might want to post a photograph (maybe Google Map) of the problem area. Although you may want to consider privacy issues before doing so. We'll cast a fairly experienced collective eye over it. You are not alone.

Ian

[Jeremy Harris]

The visibility splay requirements can often be a show stopper, as the default position is to stick to the letter of the planning regs regarding them.  Existing properties are not required to comply with these rules, but new builds are, so you can often find that building a new house right next to an existing one falls foul of needing a far more onerous set of visibility splays.

 

There are ways to argue for a reduction in the required length of these splays, though.  They are based on standard traffic density and speed for the class of road that the exit from the drive connects to.  Our build is a good example of a deviation from the standard rules, for example.  Our drive was a sticking point for planning for three applications, but in the end a traffic survey showed that the density of traffic on the unclassfied lane was much lower than the average for this class of road, and that, because of the narrow nature of the lane, plus several blind bends, traffic speed was very much lower (11mph was the typical speed recorded).  After the highways officer had made two site visits, read the reports on actual traffic density and speed, he agreed to waive the requirements for visibility splays completely, provided that the drive exit was positioned exactly where he mandated it had to be, which not only allowed planning permission to be granted, but has also given more freedom for the position of boundary fences and hedges.

Edited July 25, 2017 by JSHarris

[Badger]

Will do I'll post some photos later. Thanks everyone.

[Badger]

My mum and dads house is only 3 years old and was passed ok. It wont be possible to put in any splays as the access is in between 2 garden walls of properties. The road is a quiet road with a sharp bend in it 20m from the entrance so traffic is slow. I'll take some pics later as it's not letting me upload at the moment from scteenshots.

[Jeremy Harris]

24 minutes ago, Badger said:

My mum and dads house is only 3 years old and was passed ok. It wont be possible to put in any splays as the access is in between 2 garden walls of properties. The road is a quiet road with a sharp bend in it 20m from the entrance so traffic is slow. I'll take some pics later as it's not letting me upload at the moment from scteenshots.

 

Sadly there is no such thing as precedent in planning, so the fact that one house was allowed three years ago has no bearing at all on your application.  Unfair, perhaps, but it's in the rules and cannot be argued with - it's probably the one planning principle that is pretty much inviolable.

 

The best bet will be to get evidence that there may be a reduced, or even no, requirement to comply with the normal rules for visibility splays.  This means hard evidence, in the form of actual measured traffic density and speed normally, plus you will need to talk directly to the highways officer, as it will be him/her that will have to inform the planning officer that an exception can be allowed.  I have most of the correspondence from the debacle over our site, although second hand, as it was the previous owner that spent three years getting planning permission, with access being one of the main problem areas encountered.  The first year or so was wasted, as far as I can see, by the previous owner just putting forward changed plans, without addressing the actual problem of the visibility splay requirements.  Once those were acknowledged, he got a traffic survey done, then spent several months negotiating with the highways officer, who eventually agreed to relax the rules.  There was also an omission made by the planning officer when passing the application in the end, in that the highways officer defined reduced visibility splays, from a point in the centre of the drive exit, but for some reason these were not included on the plans and so never made it to our own panning approval, which was a stroke of luck for us.

Edited July 25, 2017 by JSHarris

[Ferdinand]

1 hour ago, Badger said:

My mum and dads house is only 3 years old and was passed ok. It wont be possible to put in any splays as the access is in between 2 garden walls of properties. The road is a quiet road with a sharp bend in it 20m from the entrance so traffic is slow. I'll take some pics later as it's not letting me upload at the moment from scteenshots.

 

That looks like something that *may* need professional advice, but post here so we have a little look.

 

There are concepts such as (iirc) *internal* splays - depending on the width of your access and how far you can see if you drive up the middle.

 

F

[Badger]

The planning officer himself has advised me to appeal saying that the decision was taken by his manager!!!

[Ian]

@Badger

visibility splays...maybe a long shot but is there any way you could locate the new bungalow on the site layout drawing so that it shares your parents driveway?

 

The Planners argument about extra traffic in & out of the site can be argued with some advice from experts. I had a commercial project with that issue and we successfully got around it

Edited July 25, 2017 by Ian

[Jeremy Harris]

The key will be to appeal with some evidence that is directly applicable to the exact wording of the reason for refusal in the Decision Notice.  If the planning officer was inclined not to agree with the Highways Officer's ruling, then you may well find that there is a let-out in the wording of the Decision Notice that helps steer the direction to take for an appeal.

 

An appeal can only be made with evidence, it won't win if it's just an opinion from the applicant, and it needs to focus tightly on all the reasons given for refusal in the Decision Notice.  It would help a great deal if you can provide evidence of the visibility splay requirements and statements as to their applicability from your local planning policy.  These cary from one local authority to another in most of the UK, but are usually online.  Have a good read of them, compare them to the reasons for refusal in your Decision Notice, and look for ways to rebut the latter.

 

Evidence could take the form of photos taken from the normal visibility splay centre point as defined in the planning policy.  Ours were initially defined as angles to set distances up the road either side from a position 2.4m back from the edge of the highway, in the centre of the proposed access, for example.  Use a camera lens that approximates to the same field of view of the human eye to take these photos, and make that clear (as a guide, a 50mm focal length lens at 35mm film equivalent is close to the human eye normal field of view).

 

Gather whatever evidence you can on traffic density and speed for the category of road.  There may well be some evidence available fro unlikely sources - our old village did a comprehensive "speed watch" programme, which recorded speeds and traffic density as part of an initiative to get traffic calming measures installed, for example.  If you can't get evidence for free, then you could try to get the Highways Officer to make a site visit and give an opinion.  As a last resort, employ someone to do a traffic speed and density survey, and try to use that as evidence.

Edited July 25, 2017 by JSHarris

[Ferdinand]

@Badger

 

We need that location plan , otherwise you are about to get 137 ideas about your bungalow, of which at least 3 will be completely relevant .

 

F

Edited July 25, 2017 by Ferdinand

[JaneM]

I'm not an expert on these matter's but agree with Ian about reading appeals.

 

I don't advocate going in this direction but it does show how some people get what they want by trying anything they think they can get away with while people like yourself and so many others on this forum do the right thing but don't succeed.

 

This appeal has just been granted.

 

Sevenoaks district council ref:17/01595/FUL  (look it up its worth a read)

 

I hope this helps.

[Ferdinand]

If it came to it, you could even purchase land from your parents to park on, have a foot pathway through to your plot, and be using *their* entrance.

 

So there are ways, but it is all contextual.

[Onoff]

1 hour ago, Badger said:

The planning officer himself has advised me to appeal saying that the decision was taken by his manager!!!

 

I love comments like this. I've visions of the manager reading this thread and bollicking the planning officer!  Like when people slate their bosses / working conditions on trade forums. 

 

I sure "they" must read these forums to try and track down illegal developments etc.

[MikeSharp01]

47 minutes ago, JaneM said:

Sevenoaks district council ref:17/01595/FUL  (look it up its worth a read)

Was that you!? Very interesting read especially as we have the same planning partnership working on a similar problem not far from us.

 

[JaneM]

Its one of the reasons we left Kent.

[ToughButterCup]

2 hours ago, JSHarris said:

The key will be to appeal with some evidence that is directly applicable to the exact wording of the reason for refusal in the Decision Notice. 

[...]

Gather whatever evidence you can on traffic density and speed for the category of road.  

 

That's the top and bottom of it. Evidence-based argument.  Add determination and tenacity and you have the makings of a case.

Don't give up

Ian

[Badger]

I'll take a photo of tge scale drawing of the plot when i get home. This is an old google earth photo so doesnt give a true representation of the site.

 

 

 

Edited July 26, 2017 by Badger

[Jeremy Harris]

That road looks pretty straight, plus the pavement looks to be pretty wide, so I'd be surprised if the existing visibility to each side wasn't pretty close to the requirement.

 

Check on your local authority planning website for the planning policy that applies (there should be a reference to it on the Decision Notice), and see what they have to say about the distance from the centreline of an exit on to a highway for that category of road, then draw lines from the distance back from the edge of the road to the centre of the exit, at the distance proscribed, out to the edge of the road for the visibility distance and see what obstacles, if any, are above the minimum height allowed (often around 1m or so) along those lines, or between those lines and the edge of the road.

[Ferdinand]

Here are the large and small scale plans that Badger sent me.

 

 

 

 

Have sightly anonymised, but @Badger posted the full location information previously so not much point.

 

F

Edited July 25, 2017 by Ferdinand

[Ferdinand]

May you have an issue with Fire Engines?

 

It looks more than 45m from the road and I am nto sure than drive is over 2.75m wide or that there is space for an appliance to turn around inside.

[Badger]

Hi Ferdinand the access road is 3m wide at the post entrance then goes to 3.7m width further down and an underground dry fire main will be fitted that negates this. 

[MikeSharp01]

When you go on streetview you can start to see their problem a pared cars along / one the kerb will obscure the view as you emerge into the road. That said it does not look like a fast road. 20 is plenty kind of place, so should not really be a problem. Looks like an immediate appeal, as you have suggested, will be your best route once you have written your case out. Several things do stand out - it is defo  brown field site so development is to be expected, and the dropped kerb for the existing entrance indicates traffic is expected finally you might argue that double yellow lines 20m each way on your side would solve the problem but will incur the wrath of your neighbours