Hello
I am new to this, after scrolling through many forums over the last 6 months and reading other people's advice I thought I would chance at seeing people's advice/experience on our own current planning situation and it would be greatly appreciated. I apologise in advance if this seems long winded.
Background - we applied at the start of August to build a two storey extension to our end of terrace house dimensions going away from the house 3 metres and the length being 4 metres thus providing us with an extra bedroom and better size kitchen with dining area for our family as it is a tight fit at the moment! Aswell as being end of terrace we are also the corner plot so have a much larger than average back garden also. We spoke to immediate neighbours before submitting plans so as to be courteous and both agreed it will not effect them at all as it is good distance from both their gardens and they were happy and we assured we would keep them in the loop of comings and goings of works and machinery. So it came as a surprise to get an objection on the last day for objections from a house to the rear of our property. These neighbours are relatively new they bought the house little over a year ago. Polite enough we have seen them within the community and they have spoken and seem very neighbourly. In there objection they listed that we would be encroaching on there privacy being able to overlook there back garden and they also raised the issue of the fence that borders our garden and theirs and stated we don't keep it in a sufficient state of repair and that already effects there privacy from us.
To say we were gobsmacked is an understatement. Other than being an old fence that is weathered all panels and posts are sturdy with a couple of slats minorly dislodged due to THEM damaging it when they had garden works done on moving in. They had also flattened an area for a shed and piled muck and debris behind it damaging the bottom of one of our panels further and crushing some of my bedding plants. However nevertheless the fence is a civil matter and nothing to do with the material of planning it just seemed they have used this as an excuse to try and back there objection further.
The planning officer in charge was reccomending approval but stated as there has been objection the planning will have to go before a planning comittee for a decision. A week before the meeting we recieved a phonecall stating that if we agreed to have the bedroom window on the extension as partially obscured that would delegate our planning permission without the need of attending the comittee meeting. We reluctantly agreed to end the stress and permission has now been granted.
However.... (sorry this is so long!) With all this putting us back as much as it has we are now at the point where we cannot start until after Christmas now anyway. We have worked hard to get to this point to provide a bigger more comfortable house for our children and as the extension is not excessive by any means we do not see why we should have to have a frosted window in our little girls bedroom. The property with objections house will be 22 metres away from our house when our works are finished. Three other properties in our close have mirror image extensions to the one we plan to have without a frosted bedroom window in site. So we are now at the point of using our "free go" with the removal of the condition of the glazed window to the bedroom. We are aware if the neighbours feel so strongly they will object again but we have been told by a few people at the planning meeting we stand good chance of having it approved. Does anybody have any idea or experienced similar? It's so stressful and un needed we tried speaking to the neighbours and explaining but they did not want to know and were quite passive aggressive and just kept stating that they have there rights to object.
Has anyone ever had experiences of similar?? We don't want it turning around to bite us in the bottom and lose out completely.
Thank you for taking the time to
Read
I am new to this, after scrolling through many forums over the last 6 months and reading other people's advice I thought I would chance at seeing people's advice/experience on our own current planning situation and it would be greatly appreciated. I apologise in advance if this seems long winded.
Background - we applied at the start of August to build a two storey extension to our end of terrace house dimensions going away from the house 3 metres and the length being 4 metres thus providing us with an extra bedroom and better size kitchen with dining area for our family as it is a tight fit at the moment! Aswell as being end of terrace we are also the corner plot so have a much larger than average back garden also. We spoke to immediate neighbours before submitting plans so as to be courteous and both agreed it will not effect them at all as it is good distance from both their gardens and they were happy and we assured we would keep them in the loop of comings and goings of works and machinery. So it came as a surprise to get an objection on the last day for objections from a house to the rear of our property. These neighbours are relatively new they bought the house little over a year ago. Polite enough we have seen them within the community and they have spoken and seem very neighbourly. In there objection they listed that we would be encroaching on there privacy being able to overlook there back garden and they also raised the issue of the fence that borders our garden and theirs and stated we don't keep it in a sufficient state of repair and that already effects there privacy from us.
To say we were gobsmacked is an understatement. Other than being an old fence that is weathered all panels and posts are sturdy with a couple of slats minorly dislodged due to THEM damaging it when they had garden works done on moving in. They had also flattened an area for a shed and piled muck and debris behind it damaging the bottom of one of our panels further and crushing some of my bedding plants. However nevertheless the fence is a civil matter and nothing to do with the material of planning it just seemed they have used this as an excuse to try and back there objection further.
The planning officer in charge was reccomending approval but stated as there has been objection the planning will have to go before a planning comittee for a decision. A week before the meeting we recieved a phonecall stating that if we agreed to have the bedroom window on the extension as partially obscured that would delegate our planning permission without the need of attending the comittee meeting. We reluctantly agreed to end the stress and permission has now been granted.
However.... (sorry this is so long!) With all this putting us back as much as it has we are now at the point where we cannot start until after Christmas now anyway. We have worked hard to get to this point to provide a bigger more comfortable house for our children and as the extension is not excessive by any means we do not see why we should have to have a frosted window in our little girls bedroom. The property with objections house will be 22 metres away from our house when our works are finished. Three other properties in our close have mirror image extensions to the one we plan to have without a frosted bedroom window in site. So we are now at the point of using our "free go" with the removal of the condition of the glazed window to the bedroom. We are aware if the neighbours feel so strongly they will object again but we have been told by a few people at the planning meeting we stand good chance of having it approved. Does anybody have any idea or experienced similar? It's so stressful and un needed we tried speaking to the neighbours and explaining but they did not want to know and were quite passive aggressive and just kept stating that they have there rights to object.
Has anyone ever had experiences of similar?? We don't want it turning around to bite us in the bottom and lose out completely.
Thank you for taking the time to
Read
and you had to hastily replace with clear!