Appeal 3270076

The appeal is allowed and planning permission is granted for erect two storey side extension with single storey front extension at [site address] in accordance with the terms of the application, Ref 20/01314/HSE, dated 13 October 2020, subject to the following conditions:

The development hereby permitted shall begin not later than 3 years from the date of this decision.

The development hereby permitted shall be carried out in accordance with the following approved plans: Site Location Plan Ref: BDS/[name]/LPA; Block/Site Plan Ref: BDS/KF-ES/LPA; [name] and [name]: BDS/KF-ES/LPA-02; and Existing and [name]: BDS/KF-ES-LPA-03.

The materials to be used in the construction of the external surfaces of the development hereby permitted shall match those on the existing building.

The site visit was undertaken by an Appeal Planning Officer whose recommendation is set out below and to which the Inspector has had regard before deciding the appeal.

The description of the proposed development on the original application form is a descriptive explanation of the position rather than an identification of the operational development. In the interest of clarity, I have considered the proposals on the basis of the description of development taken from the Decision Notice and used on the appeal form but I have removed ‘resubmission of P.A. 20/00569/HSE’ as this is not a description of the development proposed.

The Council concluded that the proposed extension would not cause harm to the character and appearance of the host dwelling or the street scene and based on the scale and appearance of the proposed extension, I see no reason to disagree with this conclusion. As such, the main issue is the effect of the proposed development on highway safety.

The Council’s parking requirement set out in the Residential Parking Standards Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) (adopted 2012) states that dwellings with two bedrooms or more should have a minimum of two allocated spaces per dwelling and 0.3 unallocated spaces but enables consideration of requirements on a site by site basis to take account of individual sites requirements. The extended dwelling would have three bedrooms and as a result the SPD does not require any additional parking provision compared to the existing 2 bed dwelling.

The current driveway layout allows for one car to be parked in front of the house and to the side of the house is a garage. The garage is very narrow and based on the information contained within the SPD, as suggested in Manual for Streets (published 2007), is too small to be counted as a parking space. The space in front of the house would be retained and as a result, the proposed development would retain the same number of off-street parking spaces.

Whilst the proposal would not comply with minimum parking standards set out in the SPD, this is true of many of the dwellings along [address]. Given their design many of the dwellings do not have off-street parking spaces or have only one off-street parking space. Because of this, there are cars parked on the road and car parking appears to be mostly unrestricted along this section of the road.

The proposal would also replace the garage with a bicycle and storage area and in front of the dwelling is a bus stop. Accordingly, the site is well served by alternative transport solutions which would reduce the need for private car use by the occupiers as encouraged by paragraph 102c) of the National Planning Policy Framework (the Framework), which supports development proposals that utilise opportunities to support walking, cycling and public transport.

Having regard to the SPD there is no substantive evidence before me that the proposal would increase the demand for parking. However, even if it did, it is likely to only result in a small additional requirement for on-street parking. The Highway Authority advises that [address] is a relatively busy through-route, however at the time of my site visit it did not appear to be heavily trafficked. The road is quite wide but existing on-street parking restricts the available width, meaning cars may have to pull into gaps to pass each other. However, I saw that there were many such spaces available along the length of the road, including the bus stop in front of the site, which would provide a large passing opportunity whenever not in use by buses.

The bus stop would limit parking directly in front of the dwelling, meaning any parking would have to be elsewhere on the road. However, there is no substantive evidence before me that on-street parking takes place indiscriminately or in such a way as to cause a hazard, even if vehicles are parked away from their owners’ property. It has not therefore been demonstrated that this would be the case with any additional parking resulting from the appeal proposal.

Consequently, there is no substantive evidence before me that the effect of an additional parked car, cumulatively with other parked cars, would result in a significant change to the existing situation. Therefore, in these circumstances even if the proposal were to increase parking demand, which is not certain, it would not have an unacceptable impact upon highway safety or a severe impact on the road network.

Therefore, the proposal would not be detrimental to highway safety and consequently, would not conflict with Policy DM4 of the [name] and Development Management Policies DPD (adopted 2011). Given the circumstances of the site there would also be no conflict with the SPD or with paragraph 109 of the Framework which states that development should only be refused on highways grounds if there would be an unacceptable impact on highway safety, or the residual cumulative impacts on the road network would be severe.

Further to the statutory commencement condition, in the interest of certainty and the character and appearance of the area it is also necessary to ensure that the development is completed in accordance with the approved plans and the external surface materials match those on the existing dwelling.

There are no material considerations that indicate the appeal should be determined other than in accordance with the development plan. For the reasons given above, I therefore conclude that the appeal should be allowed.

I have considered all the submitted evidence and the Appeal Planning Officer’s report and, on that basis, I agree with the recommendation and shall allow the appeal subject to the conditions listed above.