Hello! And, err... our appeal was dismissed :-(

[garrymartin]

10 minutes ago, Dave Jones said:

 

employ a professional who knows crack.

Do you have some suggestions? Is it best to get someone who is used to dealing with a particular LPA or just the best at what they do?

[saveasteading]

37 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

Planning Committee

You can't choose this. You would first have to convince your local coucillor, then they can ask for it to go to committee.

[Alan Ambrose]

>>> Do you have some suggestions? Is it best to get someone who is used to dealing with a particular LPA

 

As I said - a few hours on your LPA's planning portal and/or the appeals casework portal. Fish out appeals with similar characteristics (define this how you want). Note the adviser if there was one and the success/failure. Make a list. Approach one or two with the highest success rates. No need to use local, but a local might have relationships which may help (or hurt). I once used the author of a well known planning book.

[joe90]

2 hours ago, Alan Ambrose said:

I'm super pleased for you that your appeal worked. But it's probably not good to extrapolate from a single data point.

My point  was they are not all bad . I employed a planning consultant for my third application and she was useless IMO.

2 hours ago, Alan Ambrose said:

but is getting any new application booted to Planning Committee also a reasonable tactic?

In my case not, although I had support from several members prior to the vote, they all voted against me in the meeting and would not look me in the eye (and I was told they were told to vote against me).

[garrymartin]

1 hour ago, joe90 said:

My point  was they are not all bad .

100% - I digested a lot of planning appeals for research and preparation and IMHO, most of the decisions were correct and the Inspectors were not biased towards agreeing with the planners. Unfortunately, there are always outliers. I'm pretty good at looking at things objectively and I just can't find it in me to give the Inspector in my case the benefit of the doubt; I do believe he was not only wrong in his conclusion, but included observations and assumptions that he should not have done, some of which were completely wrong. On another day with another Inspector I'm sure it would have flown through.

 

BUT, as I mentioned earlier, in a back-handed way, looking at it dispassionately and objectively, I do think he gave me a clue as to how I might be successful - i.e. that he couldn't condition certain elements of the scheme to ensure they would happen and so couldn't really attribute a significant weighting to them in the planning balance. Those things *can* be conditioned in other application approaches such as outline planning, and so the same scheme may well be approved with conditions following such a route.

 

After all (and here's another great statistic for those who may find themselves in the same boat, and one I've only very recently researched ready for the potential next application), an average car in the UK emits approximately 1,394Kg of CO2 per year based on average emissions of 211.2 g/mile and an average mileage of 6,600 miles. A Passivhaus Plus dwelling emits 1,810Kg of CO2 per year *LESS* than a dwelling built to Building Regs 2021 SAP 10.2, and those savings are *LOCKED IN* year after year. So my scheme would still be emitting 416Kg of CO2 per year less even if I wasn't using a zero emission, battery electric car as I have been for the last four and a half years... 😉 

 

Edited June 30 by garrymartin
(Attached image)

[Alan Ambrose]

I'm impressed by your fortitude. 

[Kelvin]

The plot looks terrific so well worth another go. I’d also still be looking for other plots however. 

[joe90]

43 minutes ago, Alan Ambrose said:

I'm impressed by your fortitude. 

 +1. Don’t let the buggers grind you down .

Edited June 30 by joe90

[garrymartin]

6 minutes ago, Kelvin said:

The plot looks terrific so well worth another go. I’d also still be looking for other plots however. 

Thanks Kelvin. It is a special place.

 

I'm 55 next year and in a good financial position so we'd sort of convinced ourselves that if the appeal wasn't successful we'd give up on the self-build dream and I'd just take early retirement; maybe find somewhere for a deep retrofit.

 

But the day after we found out we'd lost the appeal, we lost my father-in-law only five weeks after he was diagnosed unexpectedly with Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer. He was 77 and before the diagnosis, was in good health and enjoying his life. It sort of puts a lot of things into perspective and I'm not sure I could restart the whole "find a plot" thing again.

[joe90]

35 minutes ago, garrymartin said:

It sort of puts a lot of things into perspective

Sorry to hear that, I was going through cancer treatment myself waiting for my appeal, it just made me more stubborn about the whole thing.

[MikeSharp01]

Do you think the planners understood passive house plus? I am not sure I do and ours is passive house classic!

[garrymartin]

15 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

Do you think the planners understood passive house plus? I am not sure I do and ours is passive house classic!

I'd hope so. I was fairly explicit... 😉 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MikeSharp01]

Are you not allowed to put numbers anywhere in your responses?  Would numbers not speak more confidently than words and show that the home will generate more energy than it uses (probably - PH+). Keep the car and the electric bikes all charged up and export to the grid when it cannot use all the generation. Might help but I get the feeling this inspector was using other metrics against your application. 

[garrymartin]

13 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

Are you not allowed to put numbers anywhere in your responses?  Would numbers not speak more confidently than words and show that the home will generate more energy than it uses (probably - PH+). Keep the car and the electric bikes all charged up and export to the grid when it cannot use all the generation. Might help but I get the feeling this inspector was using other metrics against your application. 

You are allowed to put numbers.

 

It's all a learning game, Mike. If I make another submission, I'll include hard numbers.

 

In my first submission, I honestly didn't think I needed to spell out the transport options available. After all, you don't *need* to include any commentary with an application for PIP. Even though I did, again, I didn't expect that I'd have to spell things out in quite so much detail to the people whose job it is to be professional planners. You live and learn...

[Kelvin]

2 hours ago, garrymartin said:

Thanks Kelvin. It is a special place.

 

I'm 55 next year and in a good financial position so we'd sort of convinced ourselves that if the appeal wasn't successful we'd give up on the self-build dream and I'd just take early retirement; maybe find somewhere for a deep retrofit.

 

But the day after we found out we'd lost the appeal, we lost my father-in-law only five weeks after he was diagnosed unexpectedly with Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer. He was 77 and before the diagnosis, was in good health and enjoying his life. It sort of puts a lot of things into perspective and I'm not sure I could restart the whole "find a plot" thing again.

Sorry to hear about your loss. We lost our father-in-law suddenly during our build. He was an architect so it was a double blow that he never got to see the finished build. 
 

If your dream is to self-build rather than self-build on that specific plot don’t give up on it. We drove up to Scotland  to look at one plot that I loved and was all in to buy but my other half, rightly, didn’t like it. We sat in a cafe licking our wounds and came across another plot that was nearby. Didn’t look much in the sales particulars but we went and had a look anyway and loved it and put an offer in that day. I subsequently retired (55), we sold up in Cambridge and moved to Perthshire. We move in to the house we built this weekend three years after walking onto the plot. 

[SBMS]

Around here, the term ‘sustainability’ in terms of the paragraph being quoted from the NPFF seems to have been interpreted as the sustainability of transportation - ie the sustainability of accessing the site. So in our council district, zero weight is given to the eco or carbon ‘sustainability’ of the build. 
 

I don’t know what the intended definition is but thought I would mention it because of the references to Passivhaus re ‘sustainability’ which isn’t the interpretation here. 
 

The weight is given to how easy it is for non car based transportation links - ie proximity to bus routes, distance from a village centre etc. 

 

I absolutely think that engaging a planning consultant is the way to go, by the way. 

[garrymartin]

12 minutes ago, SBMS said:

Around here, the term ‘sustainability’ in terms of the paragraph being quoted from the NPFF seems to have been interpreted as the sustainability of transportation - ie the sustainability of accessing the site.

Same here. But due to the lack of a demonstrable 5-year housing supply, the "tilted balance" is applied and everything is essentially then weighed as a whole. There should be a high bar for refusal here. It is not enough for there to be some harm or negative effects, or for a scheme to be less than ideal. The harm must be significant and demonstrable.

 

In this circumstance, if the sustainability of accessing the site is all about carbon emissions (i.e. the hierarchy of walk, cycle, public transport, etc.), then demonstrating that the building will more than offset any emissions coming from any transport choices made in accessing the site should surely discount that harm being significant? At least, that's my view.

[garrymartin]

21 minutes ago, Kelvin said:

I subsequently retired (55), we sold up in Cambridge and moved to Perthshire. We move in to the house we built this weekend three years after walking onto the plot. 

We're currently tied to the area as we are primary carers for my 80-year old mother. I'd be more than happy to move otherwise. Ironically, I work almost exclusively from home as much of my contact is with distributed teams, often in other countries. As a consequence, I can pretty much work from anywhere. Indeed, I left the house for work less than 15 times in 2023!

[Kelvin]

In my limited experience the planners aren’t massively interested in how highly efficient a particular house is as long as it meets building regs. Our final air tightness result was 0.44 and the building control officer wasn’t that interested. I doubt he’ll have seen many houses lower than this in his career. 

[SBMS]

27 minutes ago, garrymartin said:

Same here. But due to the lack of a demonstrable 5-year housing supply, the "tilted balance" is applied and everything is essentially then weighed as a whole. There should be a high bar for refusal here. It is not enough for there to be some harm or negative effects, or for a scheme to be less than ideal. The harm must be significant and demonstrable.

 

In this circumstance, if the sustainability of accessing the site is all about carbon emissions (i.e. the hierarchy of walk, cycle, public transport, etc.), then demonstrating that the building will more than offset any emissions coming from any transport choices made in accessing the site should surely discount that harm being significant? At least, that's my view.

I feel for you. I think that where a planning consultant would have assisted is in providing objective similar schemes that had been approved and drawing comparisons to your site and those. Where travel was an issue they would have looked for similar schemes that had been passed, on evidence, that were objectively ‘worse’ than yours. They reference planning policy, high court cases that challenge and reinforce your position and your site. Fundamentally, at an appeal stage, you’re into the intricacies and minutia of planning law, planning policy and case law.
 

At this stage it’s very hard as a lay person to produce a compelling and reasoned argument. It’d be a bit like representing yourself in court. I also think that an appeals officer or planning officer treats an application differently when you have an advocate that understands planning and case law in detail.

 

You sound a bit like me, trying to understand the NPFF, applying reasoned logic, ‘tilted balance’ and so on. But here’s the reality - actually what you need is not to understand and interpret the NPFF and planning policy, but to understand how your planning department and an inspector understands and interprets planning policy. This is totally different to you understanding policy, because the missing piece you won’t have is experience. Experience of national prior cases, of supporting high court rulings, of the local interpretations and sites that were passed and so on.  Unfortunately, it’s not an intellectual argument, and it’s not a case of you presenting your argument to a panel

of other lay people or a jury - it’s their decision to make - entirely on their interpretation and their application of policy to your application. 
 

I don’t know how It works with going back in for planning after a dismissed appeal but I would 100% recommend appointing an experienced consultant and speaking to them about your chances going for a full application (not outline). 

 

A good one will 100% be able to tell you if you have a case. Waiting for your planning officer or head of planning to come back on your points is a waste of time, I think. Get back on the saddle, get a professional in your corner, and see if the game’s over or time for round 2. 👊

Edited June 30 by SBMS

[garrymartin]

11 minutes ago, SBMS said:

I think that where a planning consultant would have assisted is in providing objective similar schemes that had been approved and drawing comparisons to your site and those.

Did that. Previous similar appeals in less ideal situations that had been successful were included, as well as case law, and examples of where LPA Planning Officers had determined similar cases in a more positive way. The Inspector's response was "The appellant has also referred me to the assessment by Officers of other proposals. Even so, I am not bound by these decisions. Irrespective, each proposal is considered on its own merits as is the case here. It is for the decision maker in each case to undertake the planning balancing exercise."

 

14 minutes ago, SBMS said:

Get back on the saddle, get a professional in your corner, and see if the game’s over or time for round 2. 👊

The landowners have tonight confirmed that they are happy for me to continue to seek planning approval, so let's see what happens this coming week in the election and then in the weeks after that as the new planning policy becomes clearer.

[SBMS]

7 minutes ago, garrymartin said:

Did that. Previous similar appeals in less ideal situations that had been successful were included, as well as case law, and examples of where LPA Planning Officers had determined similar cases in a more positive way. The Inspector's response was "The appellant has also referred me to the assessment by Officers of other proposals. Even so, I am not bound by these decisions. Irrespective, each proposal is considered on its own merits as is the case here. It is for the decision maker in each case to undertake the planning balancing exercise."

 

The landowners have tonight confirmed that they are happy for me to continue to seek planning approval, so let's see what happens this coming week in the election and then in the weeks after that as the new planning policy becomes clearer.

Good Luck, your plot looks fantastic 👍

[MikeSharp01]

Found the site on Google maps - perhaps a long shot thought you probably had already, is there any chance of getting a cycle path across the fields down to Copcut lane as from here there is a cycle friendly riverside path into town under the A38 which then connects to the primary and middle schools reasonably closely. 

[garrymartin]

1 hour ago, MikeSharp01 said:

Found the site on Google maps - perhaps a long shot thought you probably had already, is there any chance of getting a cycle path across the fields down to Copcut lane as from here there is a cycle friendly riverside path into town under the A38 which then connects to the primary and middle schools reasonably closely. 

No need Mike!

 

I think I've already mentioned it somewhere but there's a bridleway that skirts the development and joins National Route 46 of the National Cycle Network. This route down to St Michael's Church leads onto the very same Copcut Lane. Despite an unaccompanied site visit by the Inspector, he commented "Even so, I have limited details of the quality of these cycle routes."

 

It really makes very little sense to me I have to be honest... 😞

 

Bridleway in purple...

 

 

Just for a laugh, let me note that there have been no recorded cycle accidents for at least the last 10 years on the A4133 from the exit of the development until a cycle lane begins on the Ombersley Way - a distance of less than 1 km. Considering the following graphic is also *only* people who record their journeys on Strava, you can also see it's pretty well used as a route into Droitwich (even more so than the bridleway or indeed the private access road which some scoundrels seem to also make use of) 😉

 

 

Isochrones map of 5 km journey reach - the whole of Droitwich Spa is accessible;

 

 

Distances to various local services and facilities;

 

- St Michaels Church – 1.0km (0.6 miles) 

- Droitwich Community Woods – 1.0km (0.6 miles) 

- 20A and 355 Bus Stops – 1.3km (0.8 miles) 

- National Route 46 of the National Cycle Network – 1.5km (0.9 miles) 

- Chawson Barn Community Centre – 1.5km (0.9 miles) 

- SPA Convenience Store – 2.0km (1.2 miles) 

- Droitwich Spa Leisure Centre – 2.0km (1.2 miles) 

- St Josephs Catholic Primary School – 2.0km (1.2 miles) 

- Droitwich Spa High School and Sixth Form – 2.0km (1.2 miles) 

- Westacre Middle School – 2.1km (1.3 miles) 

- Droitwich Spa Train Station – 2.6km (1.6 miles) 

- ALDI Supermarket – 2.7km (1.7 miles) 

- LIDL Supermarket – 2.7km (1.7 miles) 

- Spa Medical Practice – 2.9km (1.8 miles) 

- Morrisons Supermarket – 2.9km (1.8 miles) 

- Droitwich Spa Hospital – 3.4km (2.1 miles) 

[MikeSharp01]

Yes suspected you had thought of it - respect for the very thorough work on the research around the sustainable travel. Keep on keeping on.