adding a door to a car port-planning problem

[Tobiasisno1]

Hi. does anyone have any ideas on how to deal with this? My son & daughter own an old terraced house on a corner plot. At the top of the garden in 2008 they built a room with a car port underneath, and to make it more secure want to put a door on the front which will mean it becomes a garage. The council is saying that's not acceptable for several reasons but the main sticking point is that apparently garages now have to be a minimum of 6mx3m for a single garage and 6mx6m for a double. The car port is approx 4.9mx4.9m. Our stance is that a 6m long garage is enough to get a quite a large car ( I can get my MG ZTT in) in let alone the sort of car the owner of an old terraced house is likely to own. We've argued that the overall area of the car port is greater than the minimum for a single garage but they counter that by saying we could get 2 cars in and that being the case it has to be 6x6m!
Does anyone know whether this min size requirement is a national one or whether it's compulsory or just guidance? To me it seems like a God-send for a "jobs-worth" to quote and will mean that lots of existing houses just won't have room for a garage.

Keith

 

[jeds]

Some authorities have guidance on minimum garage sizes, but as far as I am aware this is related to the number of car parking spaces counted for any given site and is not supposed to be a dictat on how big your garage can be. Sounds to me like somebody is doing that old classic of taking a piece of guidance and applying it with the vigour of a camp commandant.

To start with I would ask them for a reference on which document they are getting their information from.

 

[Tobiasisno1]

Thanks for the advice. I've spoken to a couple of people at the council and the documents are the "Manual for Streets" which I gather is a dept of Transport publication, and a document the council itself has produced. Both, at first glance seem to have more to do with new estates/streets rather than single premises in established ones but it will take me some time to read through them. The officers I've spoken to seem totally fixed in their stance tho' and I think it's going to be an uphill struggle. This is really starting to annoy me. It seems totally unreasonable to insist on such a large garage for such a modest property-isn't an adequate garage rather than a bl**dy great big one better than no garage at all?

Thanks again
Keith

 

[mattylad]

I'd just stick a door on & say nowt.

 

[Tobiasisno1]

That's looking like the best option, Mattylad, but I'll have to let the dust settle for a while I think

 

[big-all]

how many parking spaces do you have appart from the carport within your property and how many bedrooms do you have

my thinking is do you have enough spaces to satisfy modern off road parking requirements with only one parking space in your carport

 

[Tobiasisno1]

Hello "big-all". I'm not sure I understand your question. The car port IS the off-road parking for the property which has 2 bedrooms and was built when parking wasn't a problem because the occupants woudn't have owned anything that needed to be parked. There's only 1 car at the property now but you could get 2 small cars, side by side, in the car-port. There's an off road parking area adjacent to the property but the spaces are not allocated to particular properties and residents generally park on the road outside their house if the parking area is full.

Keith

 

[big-all]

please deleat duplicate

 

[big-all]

with modern planning applications they take parking into consideration
as in perhaps 2 or 3 cars off road for a 2 bed house
i was just trying to work out if they could be using this in there calculations
but you may have it coverd as in you only require 1 car to park in the garage as you have 1.5 other places

 

[Tobiasisno1]

you've lost me again big-all, where are the other 1.5 places?

 

[Static]

Have you asked the planner where the requirement comes from?

Is this a rejected written application or just verbal advise?

Ive never heard of minimum garage sizes.. but that said it might be a local thing

 

[Tobiasisno1]

hello Static. This is just an informal enquiry but conducted via email so "in writing". We live in Dudley in the West Midlands. I'll quote from the last email we had-" The highway authority cannot accept the proposed double garage with internal dimensions of 4.9m x 4.9m as according to Dudley MBC Standards and as suggested in the Manual for Streets [ a Dept of Transport publication] (para 8.3.41) a double garage should have internal dimensions of 6m x 6m" In fact that para and the 2 before it are mainly about how people don't use their garage to keep the car in but to store everything else instead! All it says on size is that "many authorities now recommend a minimum size of 6m x 3m." This is all they quote from a document of over 100 pages!
In fact both documents quoted are aimed mainly at the design of new estates, big developments etc not 100+ year old houses and I've asked the planners to tell me just what in the "standards" document they are relying on.

There are other issues but I don't want to burden you all with those.

Keith

 

[Static]

"many authorities now recommend a minimum size of 6m x 3m."

Well recommendation noted and 4.9mx4.9m applied for!.. recommendations are just that. Check out the recent approved applications from the planning portal in Dudley

http://www.dudley.gov.uk/environmen...ing-control/search-for-a-planning-application

Then click agree at the bottom and do a few searches for similar projects.. check out what sizes other people have had approved

 

[Tobiasisno1]

Thanks for the advice and link, Static. I got my son to ask for just what in the Dudley document they were relying on and the answer was there's been some confusion! There is no separate policy in Dudley and they are no longer talking about not being able to "accept" our garage size or that it "should be" 6x6, but that Dudley is one of the authorities which recommends 6x6. I've asked my son to get them to "clarify" further! In the meantime we'll search their archive to see what we can find.

And I thought these people were supposed to be working for us! They're just bullies trying it on.

I'll let you and the others who've replied know how this progresses.

thank again
Keith

 

[Tipper]

I'd just put the door on and tell them it's a gate if they ask.