Appeal 6004508

The appeal is dismissed.

The appellant has submitted a Daylight Assessment Report1 with their appeal which provides updated information to address the concerns raised by the Council in relation to the adequacy of natural light levels within the four apartments. The Council has had the opportunity to review and comment on this evidence and has confirmed that the report demonstrates the units would receive acceptable levels of daylight and sunlight. Based on the evidence before me, I see no reason to reach a different conclusion on this matter, and I will not consider it further.

Considering the above, the main issue in this appeal is whether the development would provide acceptable living conditions for future occupiers with regard to external amenity space.

The appeal site relates to four vacant office suites located at first floor within a larger mixed-use building. The site is part of the ‘Icona’ development which is understood to be a larger mixed-use development within the Stratford regeneration zone which borders the Olympic Park. The proposal is for the conversion of these commercial units to four apartments.

Amongst other things, Policy BN.4 of the London Legacy Development Corporation Local Plan 2020 to 2036 (the LLDCP) states that residential developments should incorporate sufficient, well-designed and appropriately located communal and private amenity space. Policy D6 of the London Plan also seeks to ensure that new homes have adequate private outdoor space and states a minimum of [address] metres (sqm) of private outdoor space should be provided for 1-2 person dwellings with an extra 1 Prepared by [name], dated 29th January 2026 1sqm provided for each additional occupant. The outdoor space must also achieve a minimum depth and width of 1.5m.

The Housing Supplementary Planning Guidance (2016) ([name]) provides further advice and states that, in exceptional circumstances where site constraints make it impossible to provide private open space for all dwellings, a proportion of dwellings may instead be provided with additional internal living space equivalent to the area of the private open space requirement. This additional area should be added to the relevant minimum Gross Internal Area (GIA).

In this case, although the flats would meet the minimum GIAs, they would not be provided with any private or communal outdoor amenity space. From the evidence before me, the internal areas of all of the apartments would not exceed the minimum standards to an extent that would be necessary to compensate for this absence of private outdoor space either. The development would therefore fail to meet the requirements set out in the abovementioned policies and guidance.

The site is situated within an accessible area, in close proximity to the Olympic Park and approximately [address]. However, while future occupants may gain some amenity benefit from these spaces, public spaces such as parks do not meet occupiers’ needs in the same way as private or semi-private outdoor amenity spaces do. Moreover, given the sizes of the apartments and the potential levels of occupancy, I find that the absence of any dedicated outdoor amenity space would significantly compromise the overall quality of the accommodation. Therefore, the presence of these outdoor spaces would not overcome the deficiencies of on-site amenity space for the occupiers of these apartments in this particular case.

I also appreciate that other apartments exist in the area above ground floor. However, my attention has not been drawn to any specific examples which the appellant considers to be directly comparable to the appeal scheme. Nevertheless, based on the evidence before me, I cannot be certain that other apartments in the area do not have access to their own outdoor space, for example in the form of balconies or dedicated communal spaces. Nor can I be certain whether their GIAs may compensate for an absence of outdoor space provision, or of the circumstances under which they were permitted. Nonetheless, the standards set within Policy D6 of the London Plan do not exclude apartments and flats. The apartments would meet the relevant minimum GIAs; however, these factors do not outweigh the need for future occupiers to have access to appropriate outdoor amenity space or compensatory internal space.

For the above reasons, I therefore conclude that the appeal scheme would fail to provide acceptable living conditions for future occupants with particular regard to external amenity space. This is contrary to [name].4 and H.1 of the LLDCP and Policies D3 and D6 of the London Plan insofar as they seek to ensure that developments provide a high standard of residential accommodation, including in respect of the provision of sufficient, well-designed and appropriately located communal and private amenity space. It also conflicts with Paragraph 135 of the National Planning Policy Framework (the Framework), which seeks to ensure that developments create places with a high standard of amenity for existing and future users.

The development would make effective use of an underutilised part of an existing building to provide four apartments which would broaden the supply of housing in an accessible location close to services, facilities and public transport links. The development would therefore make a small but beneficial contribution to the choice of homes in the borough and its supply of housing land; as well as providing social and economic benefits during the conversion and after occupation.

Housing delivery is supported by the Framework and, therefore, this benefit weighs in favour of the proposal. However, this should not be at the expense of providing high-quality residential accommodation which delivers a high standard of amenity for future users. In this case, given the scale of the development, the benefits associated with the delivery of four dwellings would be modest, even taking account of the objective of significantly boosting the supply of housing in the Framework, and would not outweigh the harm I have identified.

Therefore, for the reasons given above, the proposal conflicts with the development plan as a whole and material considerations do not indicate that a decision should be made other than in accordance with the development plan. Accordingly, I conclude the appeal should be dismissed.