minimum 50 square metres required by Council guidance<\/strong>. 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/em><\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Tory leader Terry Cutmore came in to support us on this and so an extrra reason for refusal was added – garden sizes below standard.<\/p>\n
We expect our officers to give us correct written advice. It’s a little bit shocking to be wrongly informed like this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[13,4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Garden Sizes Shock - onlineFOCUS<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n