Whether to make a planning appeal

Q I’ve just been turned down planning permission for another house in the back garden of my house with a shared access down the side of my existing house. The council says it’s out of character with the area and would take away amenity from existing houses. I plan to appeal. What’s you advice?

A When you’re turned down permission the first thing to do is to consider the reasons given for refusal. Ask yourself whether there are changes that could be made to the scheme that might make it acceptable to the council. If there are prospects for that, it’s likely to be a quicker route and can sometimes be a more certain route.

From the sounds of it, however, the council’s objections are points of principle. If that’s the case, nothing you could do is likely to make such a scheme acceptable and an appeal is your only hope.

I suggest you weigh up your chances of success before embarking on an appeal to make sure it’s worthwhile. Having said that, if you do an appeal yourself (which I don’t advise generally, if you want to maximise your chances), it won’t cost you anything, so you haven’t got too much to lose.

Look at the planning officer’s report on the application and consider the reasoning given for the officer’s view. You’ll need to come up with reasons to justify your proposal in light of those objections.

There’s so much at stake, appeals are quite technical and this is probably the one crack you’ll get at this. Consequently, this would be an occasion to get a professional opinion or help from a planning consultant.

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