Appeal 3315941

The appeal is dismissed.

The local planning authority has referred in its decision notice to the draft Welwyn Hatfield Local Plan 2016. However, as the plan has not yet been adopted, I can afford it only limited weight in decision making terms.

The main issue is the effect of the development upon the character and appearance of the area.

Reasons

The appeal property is in a residential area of mainly detached, two storey, brick-built dwellings. It forms one of a string of properties characterised by straight gables and with front and rear amenity spaces. Dwellings are set to either side of the road with a generally consistent, but not absolute, building line and with landscaping to their front spaces which also allow off-street parking. The landscaping, the generally common building lines, the comparable heights of the dwellings, the straight gables and the generally common use of building materials, all add positively and distinctively to the character and appearance of the area. The appeal property incorporates these characteristics.

The proposed development is for extensions, some single storey and some two storeys, to the rear, side and front of the property and with a much-changed roof shape. The appellant considers that the proposed development is ‘more akin to the provision of a replacement dwelling, albeit retaining more than half of the existing building fabric and making use of the existing building foundations’.

The proposed development would not raise the ridge of the property significantly when compared to the adjoining dwellings. The overall scale and massing would also not be inappropriate within its plot and within the overall street scene. It would not therefore appear as an unacceptably large form of development. The generally consistent building line would be maintained, and the use of external materials could be controlled by a condition.

However, the overall design of the roof, including the use of a hipped roof, would differ significantly from the general building form in the immediate area of straight gables, such that the overall result of the proposed development would be to affect the general style of the area significantly and adversely and therefore its character and appearance.

On my site visit, I was able to observe that there are the occasional properties with hipped roofs, but these are the exception. The appeal property forms one of several adjoining dwellings to either side of it which have gabled walls and which add positively to their appearance.

The appellant has also referred to hipped dwellings on [address], but the character and appearance of the area differs from that of the appeal site in terms of the general design of the dwellings within a more open landscaped setting.

Therefore, I conclude that the proposed development would not accord with policies D1 and D2 of the Welwyn Hatfield District Plan 2005, with the Council’s Supplementary Design Guidance 2005 and with paragraph 130 of the National Planning Policy Framework 2021, all of which require good design appropriate to the character and appearance of the area.

For the reasons outlined above, I conclude that the appeal should be dismissed.