Appeal 3327531

The appeal is dismissed.

Since the determination of this application a revised National Planning Policy Framework (The Framework) was published in early September 2023 whose main focus was not directly relevant to this appeal. Nevertheless, I have determined this appeal in accordance with the revised provisions within the Framework.

The description in the Council’s decision notice differs from that used in the Appellant’s original application form. [name] of the Appeal form it is stated that the description of development has not changed and as such I use the description from the decision notice that I consider better reflects the nature of the development proposed.

The main issues is the effect of the proposal upon the character and appearance of the area.

The appeal property is currently a partially deconstructed bungalow within a cul de sac of houses where bungalows and dormer bungalows predominate, all with their gable elevations fronting onto the street. Many houses appear to have been similar housetypes previously prior to being modified, often with front extensions and side dormers. For the vast majority of these houses with dormers the roof extensions are modest in scale and sat well within the roof Appeal Decision Appeal Ref: APP/G4240/D/23/3327531 slope, often offering a slope to the dormer in order to echo the slope of the existing property.

The proposal before me seeks permission to extend the front of the property in line with others along the street so as to enable more internal floorspace to be created whilst retaining the little remaining useable amenity space to the rear. Secondly, the proposals seeks to create two large dormer window extensions to each side elevation of the bungalow in order to create extra bedroom space aswell as a single storey replacement garage extension.

In contrast to many such dormer extensions on the street, the proposed dormers would extend close to the edges of the roof as well as the ridge and eaves. The result of this would be that the proposed dormers would not only be located very close to the proposed front elevation of the property but would also appear almost as flat roof flanking elements. As mentioned above, although some dormers on the street do have shallow pitches, all of the ones I saw on my site visit were either pitched to some extent or set well within the roof slope so as not to dominate the front elevation.

In this case however the proposed dormers would not take inspiration from the better examples locally and would contribute to an erosion of the character and appearance of the streetscene here through the appearance of the pitched gable being diluted in its dominance by these flanking, near flat roof and extensive dormers. In its place the result would be a building that almost appeared as a flat roof house. This would result in a very harmful cumulation of poor design that would fail to preserve the integrity of the streetscene here.

With regards the proposed frontage extension, I saw on my site visit that some dwellings along [name] are somewhat staggered in their positioning. However, I do not consider that this is a particularly intentional architectural design aesthetic and as a result I consider this currently staggered building line as being largely insignificant to the overriding designed character of the streetscene here.

What is more significant are the continued dominance of a line of distinct gables along this street, which the appeal proposal would retain and enhance through the front extension. As such, although I find significant potential harm in the creation of the proposed dormers I do not consider that the frontage extension as of itself would result in such harm so as to lead me conclude to dismiss on this ground.

Ultimately however, the dormers are of such a poor design that they would clearly be a poor intervention that would be in conflict with Policies C1 and H10 of the Tameside Unitary Development Plan aswell as guidance contained within the [name] (2010) that seeks to ensure extensions to existing properties are sensitive and contextual in their design and execution. I consider it impossible to effectively split these two elements into distinct parts and as such the appeal in its entirety must fail in this instance.

For the reasons given above, and taking into account of all other matters raised, I dismiss the appeal Appeal Decision Appeal Ref: APP/G4240/D/23/3327531