Appearances DO Matter

A planning inspector has just made an interesting decision. It wasn’t a big application. The applicant has a house on the edge of Rayleigh, and the property includes some land inside the Green Belt. There used to be quite a big outbuilding in the Green Belt part of the property, but it had been destroyed by fire. The applicant simply wanted a new outbuilding to be used for
storage of a boat, mini digger,trailer, dumper and domestic items.

The District Council had refused the application, and the inspector has upheld the refusal, purely for reasons to do with appearance. He wrote:

The new building would be steel framed with a shallow mono-pitched roof.
Also, it would have an irregular shaped footprint which would occupy virtually all of the southern end of the plot immediately behind the house. Although the sides of the building would be clad with timber feather edge boarding, it would have a stark and utilitarian appearance which would be out of keeping with the mixed rural and residential character and appearance of the locality….
——
…The thrust of Policy HP6 of the Rochford District Replacement Local Plan (LP) is to seek development of a high standard of design which takes into account visual amenity, its relationship with other buildings and scale and form. In this case the proposed building would appear large and bulky in relation to its site…..
——
…..At the heart of the Framework, there is a presumption in favour of sustainable development.Good design is a key aspect of sustainable development and should make places better for people. Also, the Frame work indicates that pursuing sustainable development involves seeking positive improvements in the quality of the built environment and that permission should be refused for development of poor design that fails to take the opportunities available for improving the character and quality of an area. Whilst the proposed building would be a replacement of a previously approved building, the development would not meet the aims of good design sought by the Framework. Therefore, on balance and for the above reasons, I conclude that the appeal should be dismissed.

So the appearance of buildings does matter – even if they are only for storing a boat and a mini-digger. That’s something that councillors should remember – not only in Rochford Districe but elsewhere.

You can find more information here.