In determining an appeal against an enforcement notice directed at the conversion of a terrace house in southeast London to two flats (DCS Number 400-024-950), an inspector has explained how a notice might constitute a nullity.
Monthly Archives: February 2020
Will it stand or will it fall?
Appellants who were hoping to gain permission for an additional residential caravan on their pitch in north Yorkshire will no doubt be interested in the fate of the Finney judgment, reported in A conflict situation, in the Supreme Court.
A poisoned chalice?
Is pre-application advice sometimes a poisoned chalice? A case in point concerns a recent appeal relating to a proposal for a new dwelling to the rear of an existing house in Derbyshire (DCS Number 400-025-015). In this case the inspector awarded costs against the council after she found the pre-application advice which had been given to be misleading.
A place for everything
….and everything in its place.
An inspector has decided that a digital advertisement to replace a paper and paste advertisement would be out of place in suburban Bristol (DCS Number 400-024-682).
As the pigeon flies
In an appeal case in which the potential threat to residential amenity came from an airborne source the inspector took the topography of the land into account in coming to her decision. In this case (DCS Number 400-024-952) a south Wales householder was denied permission to retain a pigeon loft in his rear garden.
Oversimplification
A light touch is one thing but you can go too far.
In dealing with an appeal relating to a prior approval application for a rear extension to a house in southeast London under Part 1, Class A of the GPDO (DCS Number 400-024-852) an inspector pointed out that the plans do not need to be drawn to scale.
A light touch approach
The change of use of a B1(c) light industrial building in southeast London used for the manufacture of event sets to C3 residential under Schedule 2, Part 3, Class PA of the GPDO has been deemed to be permitted development by an inspector notwithstanding intervening uses since the relevant date (DCS Number 200-009-116).
Anytime soon
In Shakespeare’s day ‘presently’ only meant in the present, now. Over a few centuries the procrastinators amongst us have managed to stretch the meaning of the word such that it can also mean in the near future, soonish. Likewise, ‘immediately’ might not mean exactly the same thing to one person as it does to another. Against this background you can see the inspector’s problem with an enforcement notice which required the use of a site in Gloucestershire as a storage yard to cease ‘immediately’ (DCS Number 400-024-830). He declared the notice a nullity and without legal effect.
News from PlanningResource
- ‘Number of holiday-let homes has soared by 40 per cent’ July 1, 2022A report by the BBC, detailing where spikes in holiday rental numbers are highest, leads our round-up of today’s newspaper stories
- Inspectors pause local plan hearings to ‘consider’ neighbouring authority’s unmet housing need July 1, 2022Planning inspectors have postponed the remaining public hearings assessing the viability of an authority’s local plan in order to “allow more time for the consideration of information relating to Leicester’s unmet housing need”.
- Residents in North Norfolk village use neighbourhood plan to stem rise in second home ownership July 1, 2022Residents in the parish of Heacham in North Norfolk have included a clause to their neighbourhood plan requiring all new housing to be sold as principal residences, to stem an increase in second and holiday home ownership.
- Independent review finds capacity of employment sites to absorb extra Black Country homes is 'not significant' July 1, 2022An independent review of the emerging strategic plan for the Black Country has identified additional brownfield land for development, but not “of a significant scale” to close out the subregion’s housing shortfall.
- Local Plan Watch: Council adopts plan after nine years of preparation, despite housing shortfall June 30, 2022A council has adopted a local plan after a nine-year preparation process, despite identifying a 500-home shortfall in its planned housing supply.
- 10 key things that happened this week June 30, 2022Ten of the biggest stories from the past week, including a council taking enforcement action against one of the UK's biggest housebuilders and the local authorities with the highest and lowest approval rates.
- How measures in the levelling up bill to force developers to complete schemes more quickly are likely to play out June 30, 2022The levelling up bill includes proposals requiring developers to tell councils when they are starting work on a permitted scheme and making it easier for authorities to force applicants to complete unfinished buildings. However, observers say the measures are unlikely to have any significant impact on build-out rates.
- ‘Census results suggest some green belt building might have been unnecessary’ June 30, 2022A national newspaper report claiming that the census results indicate that some green belt land might have been “unnecessarily” allocated for development due to over-estimated population figures in some areas leads our roundup of today’s news.
- Clarkson acting like ‘a classic bully’, says council planning officers’ chairman June 30, 2022TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson has been acting like “a classic bully” in picking on local authority planning officers, says the chairman of the body that represents them.
- The councils that determined the fewest applications within government time limits in 2020/21 and 2021/22 June 30, 2022Eighteen authorities are sitting below the government’s ‘special measures’ threshold for speed of decision making on applications in the two years to March 2022, two more than in the previous quarter.