Singing Pig

Land outside the housing settlement area

If the plot of land you're looking at winning residential permission for is inside the housing settlement area, you are off to a good start.

The housing settlement area is usually shown by a red line around the qualifying part of the town or village, shown on maps which are usually to be found at the back of the Local Plan for the area, or the Unitary Development Plan if it is an area with no County Council.

Sometimes there is instead a vague reference in policies to "the built-up area" of the settlement, which is obviously wide open to interpretation and therefore rather unsatisfactory. But it is also arguable; a red line is not - you are either within it or without it  .... and the latter case usually also means destined to be without the planning permission you aspire to win !

Often you will find a string of houses outside the red line on a road approaching or leaving a settlement. These may have all of the appearances of being part of the village, but are outside the red line, and on land which is therefore classed as open countryside.

These dwellings are usually referred to as Ribbon Development - dwellings built in the form of a ribbon running away from the main settlement area, and built before the planning authorities got their proscriptive act together and defined settlement boundaries.

Is it always hopeless trying to win permission for "normal" dwellings (i.e. dwellings with no agricultural, forestry or other special justification) in ribbon development or otherwise outside a settlement area ?

Surprisingly, not always. Under 'Other Material Considerations' you could argue on appeal that your proposal rounded off the settlement area in a more natural way than the planning authority's red line. And some local plans have a policy stating that, outside settlement areas, they will still grant planning permission for infill development that forms part of a distinct group of X number of dwellings. (10 seems popular in East Anglia)

There is a formal definition of Infill. It is the development of a gap in an otherwise fully developed road frontage. The gap is usually suitable for one or perhaps two dwellings. (Bigger than that and they usually start arguing "Important Open Space" contributing to the character and appearance of the area etc.)

Note that I have referred to Local Plans which, together with County Structure Plans, constitute the main element of The Development Plan right now. But in 2004, the government - bless them - threw out the baby with the bathwater and decided to scrap that system completely and replace it with Regional Spatial Strategies and Local Development Frameworks in the most complicated system one could devise.

Suffice it to say that planning authorities first have to produce a Core Strategy, and that several of those have been thrown back at the authority as being unsustainable, so it looks like becoming a right lashup. Most authorities have "saved" their existing Local Plan policies for 3 years to give themselves time to get their act together. We will look at the new Development Plans system later - i.e. when I and others hopefully have a better clue as to how it will work !

Our latest planning permission success arrived in the post this morning from the Planning Inspectorate .... a residential building plot won on appeal for a site at Compton Park Road, Hartley, Plymouth.

The planning appeal was undertaken on Contingency Fee terms with an initial payment, plus a very acceptable 4-figure success fee.

This plainly gives the lie to the assertion by one forum member that you can't win planning permission 'at a distance'. We've done exactly that time and time again over the past 18 years using exactly the same methods that we explain in "The Land Profits System".

(Watch this space ! I intend to shortly pose a simple quiz question with a free copy of "The Land Profits System" as the prize. Just for a bit of fun really .... and to see who is paying attention on the Basic Planning Law Forum !) 

The weight given to local objections

This is an interesting aspect of planning applications and appeals.

Some applicants panic when local residents object to their planning application.

Some objectors think that sheer weight of numbers of objectors is the key to getting a planning application refused. They even rush around getting signatures on a petition, believing that the more signatures they have obtained, the more notice will be paid to their desire to thwart the planning application.

Others produce a standard or slightly varied letter and give copies out to local residents to sign and submit to the planning authority in the utterly mistaken belief that, the more letters it receives, the more it is likely to bend towards the objectors when deciding the application.

Both of these kinds of objectors are basing their strategy on a total ignorance of planning law.

The legal position is unequivocally clear. Local objections are a factor to be considered, but they are not an overriding factor. If a development proposal is "in accordance with the policies of the development plan", then unless the objectors can draw attention to Other Material Considerations of such great weight that they justify overriding those development plan policies, their objections are doomed to failure - either at the application decision stage, or on subsequent appeal if the planning authority issues a perverse decision.

If it was not possible to win planning permission in the face of local objections, then Land Planning Associates would probably not have won a single permission in the past 18 years. I cannot recall a single proposal that did not attract local objections. (Our recent success in the Hartley are of Plymouth attracted a fistful - mostly from snobs in the next street who didn't want their area "downgraded" by further development. Planning applications and appeals bring out the worst in people !)

Regrettably, the NIMBY attitude always seems to be that there is too much development occurring in a specific location (particularly in rural villages) and that their house should therefore definitely be the last one approved in the particular settlement ! And they almost invariably cannot perceive the utter hypocrisy of their position !

Objectors are often hampered by their own ignorance of the rules of the planning system. Objections must be planning objections to be given any consideration at all. So any complaint that the proposed development will - for example -  "adversely affect the value of my property" or "spoil my view of the countryside" will simply be ignored.

And yes, when we have won planning permission in the face of objections, we have then then seen a vociferous objector with a similar development opportunity getting their application in like the proverbial "rat up a drainpipe" !

What about Parish Councils/Town Councils? Members elected to these august bodies seem to believe they are suddenly all-powerful in the planning application stakes.

The legal position is that the planning authority must consult the local council .... but is not required to do what it says ! (This is because it is the planning authority which must account for and justify any refusal on appeal, not the parish/town council. And many parish/town councillors are as ignorant as uninformed objectors about what is a planning consideration and what is not.)

So ....... concentrate on proving that your proposal is supported by development plan policies and any Other Material Considerations you can conjure up. Local objections are seldom a key factor in the result.

Hi, 

Just joined the forum. Could you please send me some more info. re: The Land Profits System..

Regards,

George 

Hi George

I have PM'd you

Trevor

A bit of free advise if possible, if I need to pay later thats fair enough.

The postcode WF3 3DR, please use google maps and zoom right in, It's the house on the corner. The garden is large enough for a 4 bed detached, Where do I go from here??

I should make it clear to all SP users that I won't normally issue planning advice about specific sites without all of the details we need to do it properly, professionally, and reliably, because Land Planning Associates is legally accountable for any advice I issue, whether free or otherwise. 

The information and an application form for assessment of development potential is in the No Win-No Fee section of  our website www.landplanning.org.uk for anyone who wants advice about the development potential of a specific piece of land. (The modest assessment cost is heavily subsidised, incidentally. It takes anything from 1 to 3 hours to complete such an assessment.)

However, John ..... I've had a quick look at the site I think you are referring to - on Google Earth actually, not on the maps. It is one instance where the satellite picture is excellent in clear detail. (Many of them are blurred once you're close enough to see anything worth looking at !)

It looks to me as though it would be very cramped if another dwelling of any size was put into that corner garden. And it would leave precious little amenity space with the "donor" dwelling. So I'm pretty certain that the planning authority would turn it down on both of those grounds, without even looking at other development plan policies that they could argue the proposal offends.

However, if you are determined to pursue it, you need to take control of the land (if you don't already own or control it) to ensure that you benefit from any planning permission you might win.

The easiest way to do that is via a purchase option agreement. Then you can go for either Outline or Full planning permission. (I would go for Outline. It is not a site where I would want to spend 4 figures on Architectural drawings to find out whether a dwelling was "on" or not, because I reckon the prospects are slim.)

LPA,

Good on you for posting this thread on the basics of Planning. Makes for good reading and easily understood the basics.

Nigel.