Ron Oatham made an important intervention during last night’s Development Control meeting.
We were discussing an application at 206 London Road Rayleigh. Thsi is an empty house with a huge garden, next to the old electricity offices. We were discussing a scheme for 14 houses here. You download the officers report here – it’s about 1.12 Mb.
It’s clear from the officers report that redevelopment of this site is OK in principle. But there are a lot of trees on the site, and the officers were recommeding refual of this particular scheme on the grounds of:
1 The proposal, by way of the close proximity to the dwellings proposed to plots 1 – 4 inclusive to the preserved oak trees would give rise to poor daylight levels entering these properties due to the presence of preserved trees the subject of Tree Preservation Order 13 /87. Furthermore, there is likely to be tree debris, leaf and fruit dispersal covering the front amenity areas such that the end use space will be compromised. If permission is granted it is anticipated that there will be significant pressure to remove or reduce these preserved mature oak trees proving detrimental to the leafy character and appearance of the area and site locality.
2 The development would result in the loss of preserved oak, silver birch, hazel and bay trees the subject of tree preservation order 36/09 and fails to accommodate within the development the amenity afforded by those preserved trees. Furthermore, the submitted arboricultural information fails to consider the effect of the development upon those preserved trees and any mitigation that may be required. If allowed, the proposal would result in the loss of these preserved trees to the detriment of the leafy character and appearance of the area and site locality.
Now, if a council refuses any application for a couple of reasons, and the applicant then overcomes these problems – by adjusting the scheme is soem way, the council isn’t normally allowed to bring extra reasons for refusal when the scheme somes back. So it’s always important to include all valid reasons for refusal at the first opportunity.
Which brings us to the question of garden sizes. The officers report says:
The three-bedroomed houses would be provided with rear garden areas between 55 square metres and 125 square metres and in excess of the minimum 50 square metres required by Council guidance. The exceptions to this are garden areas of 43 square metres to plot 4 and 48 square metres to plot 13, which both flank the entrance to the development. In both cases these garden areas are rectangular in shape and useable. Officers consider that the benefits in layout and townscape terms override the minor failing in garden area, given that the undersized shape is still useable.
But Ron Oatham, who likes asking awkward questions, quoted from one of our council policy documents that said that, unless they are terraced, three-bedroomed houses should have a minimum garden size of 100 square metres, not 50! He asked our director of planning that this was true.
The answer was eventually given that Ron was correct and this paragraph in the officers report was wrong. Chris Black followed up by asking how many proposed gardens were actually below the 100 square metre standard and it turned out that most were.
Tory leader Terry Cutmore came in to support us on this and so an extrra reason for refusal was added – garden sizes below standard.
We expect our officers to give us correct written advice. It’s a little bit shocking to be wrongly informed like this.