New Forest District Council: Matt Annen is pleased to report that just before the festive break planning permission was granted for the demolition of an existing garage, the severance of the plot and the erection of a new detached 2-bedroom dwelling with associated parking in Milford-On-Sea. The new house was designed by Western Design Architects.
During the course of the application we were advised by the planning officer that in her view, the proposal would be an unsympathetic addition to the street that would be visually harmful due to the size of the proposed dwelling in relation to the plot size, its close relationship and proximity to adjoining dwellings. She also felt would lead to overlooking which would detrimental to the amenities enjoyed by the occupants of this neighbouring property. However because the Parish Council’s recommendation was to grant which was contrary to the planning officer’s recommendation, the application had to be determined at Planning Committee.
Matt presented a robust deputation to the Members of the planning committee explaining how the Council cannot currently demonstrate a 5-year housing land supply. Whilst Matt acknowledged that only one additional dwelling here is not going to make much of a dent on the delivery of new homes, he advised how he had trawled through the planning applications for Milton on Sea on the Council’s website and reported that over the last 3 years from 272 planning applications only 4 applications for additional dwellings have been approved in Milford on Sea combining to deliver only 6 additional dwellings. If all these schemes have been built that only equates to an additional 2 dwellings a year. So Matt argued that actually this additional dwelling would make a very valuable contribution towards the delivery of new homes in Milford On Sea.
Matt continued to justify the acceptability of the scheme by explaining that the existing site is double the size of many of the nearby neighbouring dwellings meaning the resultant density when there are 2 houses on the plot is comparable to neighbouring arrangements such that he did not consider that a plot severance of this nature would be out of character. The officer also criticised the garden size. Matt once again challenged this explaining to the Members that the garden was 14m wide and so would receive sunlight in different places at different times of the day. Matt also pointed out that there was no policy which stipulates that gardens have to be a certain size or orientation. It will come down to market forces and the garden size and orientation will be factored in by the purchaser of the dwelling.
Matt’s deputation must have been convincing (I’m sure it can be found online if you really wanted to watch his performance!) as Members went against their officer’s recommendation to refuse the application and collectively decided to Approve the application by 9 votes to 1. Our longstanding clients were quite rightly over the moon when the decision landed on Friday 20th December and we look forward to construction starting on the new house in the near future.
If you are looking for a firm of planners to robustly justify your proposal and challenge an officer’s negative recommendation for refusal, why not contact Pure Town Planning to find out if we can assist you.