Getting the neighbours on side...

[Olly P]

So, the planning consultant has visited our site and we are looking to submit an outine planning application in around 2 weeks. We discussed various things and it seems the only thing I can do in the meantime is to talk to the neighbours In hope that they won't object or better still , write a supporting email to the LPA. I've spoken to 4 neighbours and they are ok with it but the remaining two that over look the site in yet to talk to. 

My question is, has anyone any tips on getting folk on side to support a self build?! 

[ragg987]

What I did...

 

[recoveringbuilder]

I don’t know about getting neighbours on side, some people will always gripe about things but I do know that unless they have a very valid reason to complain the council won’t listen to them. When we applied for ours 4or5 of the neighbours objected but the council addressed all of the complaints and at the end of the day none of them were valid and our permission came through, good luck 

[joe90]

Yes we had a neighbour that objected about quite a few things regarding our build and the appeal said his objections were not reasonable or valid . So yes just because they object does not mean you will not get planning permission (NIMBY). A good way to get on peoples side I believe is just be honest but listen to their opinion.

Edited September 15, 2018 by joe90

[Jml]

We approached our neighbours re: an extension, but would not do so again. They were not happy with the roof pitch so we modified our design and showed them the revised design, to which the response was anything but friendly.  Our planning was approved, but feel that it probably would have been even if we had not changed it.  In the end we gained no benefit, had a worse design and probably annoyed the neighbours, not the outcome we had hoped for!

[Hecateh]

Regardless of whether it affects planning permission, it is a good idea to get neighbours on side if possible.  

 

I had spoken to all but one neighbour and they all seemed reasonably happy.  I never saw this couple to speak to, He always came and left in a car and his wife seemed very shy and barely looked at me when I say hello.

 

They (or I suspect mostly he) objected and got the others on side and during the main build they were phoning the council every few days.  A delivery vehicle blocked their passage (for 10 mins.  The road had been left muddy (another neighbour had spread grit during the snow, we were expecting freezing weather - hosing the road would have been so dangerous).  The council came out a few times but then they stopped bothering as they had no issue with what we were doing and I think, in effect, they told the neighbours to stop crying wolf.

 

Many other instances.  2 of the 3 don't even acknowledge me any more.  I don't really care but their behaviour has made an very stressful year even more stressful.

Edited September 16, 2018 by Hecateh
grammar and a bit of context

[K78]

My neighbour recently applied to build a house directly next to my property. I told him before he did I would oppose and explained my reasons as to why. 

 

It was rejected. 

 

I would not have opposed if it had no impact on me, but it directly overlooked the garden and was literally on the other side of my fence. 

[Hecateh]

2 hours ago, K78 said:

My neighbour recently applied to build a house directly next to my property. I told him before he did I would oppose and explained my reasons as to why. 

 

It was rejected. 

 

I would not have opposed if it had no impact on me, but it directly overlooked the garden and was literally on the other side of my fence. 

 

The one neighbour that didn't object was the one who was most affected by my build.  It blocks part of his long reach view and is about 1500mm from his garden.  I don't however overlook him as the only window on that side is ground floor, a bedroom and there is currently a 3 metre beech hedge between us.  (That will be reduced but not so that it affect overlooking

[Triassic]

We walked around all our neighbours with a copy of our plans, some were interested others not. Having applied for planning permission we had no objections from them, or the Parish Council, which according to our architect was a first. 

[joe90]

There’s no pleasing some people but if you offer information some will come on board.

[ToughButterCup]

11 hours ago, Olly P said:

[...]

My question is, has anyone any tips on getting folk on side to support a self build?! 

 

Relax.

You'll know soon enough. Be yourself.

 

Home  ownership does not automatically confer a valid opinion on surrounding plots.   Application for Planning Permission is one of the best ways I know of finding out what people really think.

 

@JSHarris tells a simple story of how he did everything a reasonable person could do - consulted, listened, adapted ideas, spent a significant sum.

But didn't know that  one of his neighbours was just trying it on. How did he find our? Years later the neighbour told him.

( I cant remember where: probably here on BH, but maybe his own site )

 

My story is simpler. They hated the  design, they objected (sometimes vociferously and very rudely), they wanted a duplicate of the other houses all round. Here's the whole story.

 

Follow guidelines, consult professionals, and just do it. 

[Ferdinand]

12 hours ago, Olly P said:

So, the planning consultant has visited our site and we are looking to submit an outine planning application in around 2 weeks. We discussed various things and it seems the only thing I can do in the meantime is to talk to the neighbours In hope that they won't object or better still , write a supporting email to the LPA. I've spoken to 4 neighbours and they are ok with it but the remaining two that over look the site in yet to talk to. 

My question is, has anyone any tips on getting folk on side to support a self build?! 

 

TBH it is a judgement call, and based on the relationship. 

 

You could have a conversation with your PC, who will be able to explain in 15 minutes or so where the "policy" lines are drawn in eg facing windows of habitable rooms. That may give you a better grasp and give you a mental routemap as to what are 'reasonably' expectations.

 

Beyond that it is what your relationship is like.

 

I would say do not compromise on any of your core requirements, and warn in advance as appropriate but do not (usually) be deliberately manipulative (eg applying for PP 3 days before they are away on hols for a month).

 

My first PP was a big one (outline for a housing estate), and I knew I would get some aggro (and we did). We sold at outline so then it was out of our hands, though I still have a property next door, but I did a few things that would help (eg not making a fuss when a neighbour wanted a hedge to become 3m high).

 

Ferdinand

 

[nod]

15 hours ago, Olly P said:

So, the planning consultant has visited our site and we are looking to submit an outine planning application in around 2 weeks. We discussed various things and it seems the only thing I can do in the meantime is to talk to the neighbours In hope that they won't object or better still , write a supporting email to the LPA. I've spoken to 4 neighbours and they are ok with it but the remaining two that over look the site in yet to talk to. 

My question is, has anyone any tips on getting folk on side to support a self build?! 

Getting the neighbours on side is quite easy Keeping them on side is the tricky bit

 

[Gone West]

12 minutes ago, nod said:

Getting the neighbours on side is quite easy Keeping them on side is the tricky bit

 

Yes we had no trouble from anyone living locally with our application. We only had a complaint when they said we weren't demolishing the old bungalow fast enough.

[jack]

When we did this, we went in with the approach of it being a done deal, and didn't ask for their feedback.

 

We just said that we were about to apply for planning and that we thought they might like to see what was going on before it was submitted.

 

We also explained that we were building to live in it permanently with our family.

 

We then focused on the build process and explained that it would be a kit build, so the main structure would go up fast. We also confirmed that we'd be on site every day and would be very mindful of the impact the build could have in terms of noise and dust etc.

 

I don't know whether it helped, but in the end had no objections, one letter in support, and an offer of a letter in support if we wanted it. In contrast, two other nearby builds (our neighbor and another family a few doors away) faced organised objections from several of those who didn't object to ours. 

[MikeSharp01]

We went round the neighbours with the draft plans before submission and got their feedback, we also tried to be good neighbours, joining the residents association, paying the fee, and joining the work parties - its a private road so upkeep falls the residents. We need not have worried perhaps as essentially they were happy to see the dilapidated bungalow go and we had no objections. We are still working at being good neighbours having paid for the footpath adjacent to our property to be resurfaced and keeping on with the working parties. They all seem happy - the only problem came when we had a bonfire to burn all the vegetation which we had heaped up - the garden had been neglected entirely for 10 years, one neighbour did complain about that so I put it out immediately and light it up again once she went out.

 

[Jeremy Harris]

Like @jack, we didn't ask the neighbours for any feedback on our application, as we felt that would invite trouble.  Our plot had a bad planning history, with a couple of refusals in the past and we bought in knowing that we were going to have to submit a new application, as we didn't want the bungalow that had somehow been approved (with 14 separate points of objection from the Parish Council and objections from the majority of the neighbours on the consultation list).

 

Given the history of objections, I chose to explain, to all the neighbours on the previous consultation list, what we were planning to build, and in that explanation I addressed (without naming anyone) every point of objection that had been made.  I made a scale model of what we were planning to build and included photos of this with a newsletter that I sent to the neighbours.  As it happens, we submitted our plans shortly before Christmas, so I included a Christmas card with the newsletter.  I also made the point of telling everyone that we were building our "home for life" and had no intentions of ever selling it, just to allay any suspicions that we were building to sell and make a profit.

 

I did get a few phone calls and emails from neighbours, but all were either positive, or asking questions about our application that weren't planning issues (and without exception all the questions arose from the people concerned not having read the application properly).  I answered all these politely, and I think this was one reason why we had no objections at all from any of the neighbours to our application.

 

The scale model did make a big difference, I'm sure, as it was clear from the reaction of those that saw it that they hadn't understood from the plans that the height of the ground level where the house, garage and garden are was to be lowered by around 2.5m.  I think a lot of people have some difficulty in understanding how something may look when only looking at plans.  I know the scale model made a massive difference at the Parish Council planning meeting, as they went from having submitted 14 points of objection to the previous application to supporting our application, and that, together with no objections from neighbours meant we gained approval pretty easily, albeit with a fair bit of hassle just because we were inside an AONB, opposite a GII listed building, etc.

 

 

 

[Onoff]

Two "musts":

 

Don't shag the neighbours missus / daughter 

 

Don't run over their cat/ dog

 

[newhome]

2 minutes ago, Onoff said:

Two "musts":

 

Don't shag the neighbours missus / daughter 

 

Don't run over their cat/ dog

 

 

You’ve had objections due to both scenarios presumably ... ?

 

 

[jack]

1 hour ago, Onoff said:

Two "musts":

 

Don't shag the neighbours missus / daughter 

 

Don't run over their cat/ dog

 

 

Or vice versa.

[Ed Davies]

1 hour ago, JSHarris said:

The scale model did make a big difference,

 

But even a model can cause confusion. Apparently when they were putting in the application for the Hockerton Housing Project houses they had a scale model which you could lift the top off to show the internal layout of the houses and how they were built into the berm. Somebody (a councillor?) asked if the roof would lift off the real houses. ?

[newhome]

4 minutes ago, Ed Davies said:

Somebody (a councillor?) asked if the roof would lift off the real houses. ?

 

You can't fix stupid! 

[Jeremy Harris]

19 minutes ago, Ed Davies said:

 

But even a model can cause confusion. Apparently when they were putting in the application for the Hockerton Housing Project houses they had a scale model which you could lift the top off to show the internal layout of the houses and how they were built into the berm. Somebody (a councillor?) asked if the roof would lift off the real houses. ?

 

 

I made two models.  This one was the one I showed the neighbours, planners, etc, and the roof doesn't lift off:

 

 

 

I also made a bigger model (well, about 5 or 6 of them, for the several iterations of the house design) which was mainly to allow my wife to get a feel for the size of the rooms, as she was struggling to understand plans.  I made the bigger model to a scale of 1:50, so I could use the same scale model railway plastic people inside it to give a sense of scale.  Not sure what she thought of the bikini-clad lady I placed in the shower area to show that it was big enough, though:

 

[Olly P]

9 hours ago, JSHarris said:

 

 

I made two models.  This one was the one I showed the neighbours, planners, etc, and the roof doesn't lift off:

 

 

 

I also made a bigger model (well, about 5 or 6 of them, for the several iterations of the house design) which was mainly to allow my wife to get a feel for the size of the rooms, as she was struggling to understand plans.  I made the bigger model to a scale of 1:50, so I could use the same scale model railway plastic people inside it to give a sense of scale.  Not sure what she thought of the bikini-clad lady I placed in the shower area to show that it was big enough, though:

 

Some impressive model making going on there!! I will take your advice and try to produce something similar if/when we get outline planning and then onto full planning. As we are only applying for Outline planning at the moment we don't need such detail yet. 

I have spoken to more neighbours tonight and have had more good response, all saying it won't concern them and one saying they were waiting for someone to develop that land! But alot did have concerns on the access/speed of vehicles on the road. It's a 30mph limit but alot do speed and it's on a gradual bend which will restrict view. I guess the highways agency will respond accordingly when the application is submitted. Does anyone have any info on viewing distance (splay?) in a 30mph zone? 

[Tennentslager]

 

. Does anyone have any info on viewing distance (splay?) in a 30mph zone

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/manual-for-streets