Attached Garage and Planning Permission for Change of Use

A while ago I submitted a building control notice to convert my attached garage into living space (Utility room and study). Shortly afterwards I received a letter from the planning office saying that I needed to apply for planning permission (with plans + full fee of £220!).

At around the same time the documents came through from the solictor (we had just bought this house) and the original planning permission granted for the 2-storey extension that contains the garage (ground floor Kitchen + Garage, 1st Floor Bedroom) had a condition attached to it that the garage must remain a garage to preserve on-site parking.

What led me to believe I could convert the garage in the first place was the presence in the locality (on my street and adjacent roads) of other properties where similar works had been carried out.

Does anyone have any experience of dealing with planning departments / getting conditions removed or establishing planning precedents?

Another thing I cannot understand is the that they require the full fee for the planning permission. For £110 you could make an addition (extension, conservatory etc) but for change of use the full rate is levied.....why?

Thanks

Reply to
Jizzy_Lizzy
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Rule one is to check and check again before buying.

In order to get a condition altered you have to convince the planners that it is reasonable and will comply with current planning rules. It sounds if if others may have just ignored the condition. In most cases after four years the power to enforce it lapses. The fact that others have got away with it probably increases the liklihood that the Council will not alter it since the purpose was to reduce on street parking.

Reply to
Peter Crosland

Odd. When I was considering converting my garage, the council said that it did need planning permission to remove a restriction on conversion made when the estate was built. However, they said that as it would otherwise not require permission, that the fee would be entirely waived.

Apparently, their plan calls for two off street parking spaces for every house of this size. The defined a parking space as being 2.4m x 4.8m. The drive was only 9m long, hence 60cm too short. We would probably have got permission, but moved house before the conversion.

We were planning to get an ultra large scale plan from the OS and photocopy it at a few % enlargement and write "Not to scale" on it. We were advised to do this by a builder friend, who said it often worked and wasn't illegal. The planning bods would normally ignore the "not to scale" marking and read distances off with a ruler.

Even so, I suspect permission would have been granted even if they knew the length.

Christian.

Reply to
Christian McArdle

Christian McArdle wrote

LOL! That's good one - I'm going to remember that, cheers. But, from experience, the OS digital plans are quite inaccurate anyway. Many times I've measured an existing building, drawn it in AutoCAD and then found it won't fit on the OS site plan!

Peter

Reply to
Peter Taylor

I had to sort out some lease plans last year and didn't trust my surveying skills 100% so ordered a large scale digital plan as a check. It was not half as accurate as I expected, and more worryingly omitted various buildings that had been erected for a good 20 years. Definitely not what I was expecting.

Reply to
Tony Bryer

Yes, the OS don't claim otherwise. Basically, the lines established on the ground hold far more force in a dispute than the lines on the plan, which frequently just show the intentions of the estate builder before various issues caused them to change their minds.

Christian.

Reply to
Christian McArdle

Assuming it is not a listed building or in a conservation area you can apply for a certificate of lawfulness.

Not so.

Reply to
Peter Crosland

It's the same sort of thing in my area. I watched the planning process for two new houses just up my road. These were 4 bedroom houses (must be small bedrooms). They each required 2 off-street parking places, one of which must be suitable for a disabled driver to load/unload their own wheelchair and access the house (in effect, an extra-wide parking space). This was satisfied in this case with a single garage built in to the house, set back far enough for another parking space to be the driveway. In practice, they use the garage as storage, and the extra wide parking space for two cars.

However, the planning people aren't consistent. In the meeting, one of the councillors asked the others "we don't require a driveway capable of turning round a car off-road do we?", to which the others answered "no". I have the planning permission for my house, 2 doors down the road, which states that the drive must be large enough to enable a car to be turned around off-road. So you get different rules made up for different planning applications on the spur of the moment.

Actually, it was interesting to see how many mistakes were made in building these two houses. When the walls were up to about 3' high, they realised the garage was narrower than permitted (the minimum size was to allow a car and two bicycles to be fitted in). This went back to a planning meeting, and they were allowed to continue providing garden sheds were built suitable for holding 2 bicycles, so these two houses have a planning requirement to have garden sheds of a certain minimum size. The house plans included chimneys from fireplaces in the living room. They were not building these and went back to have them removed from the plans, which was refused, so the chimney's had to be built.

Planning permission also required a number of the trees and hedges around the plot to be retained. These had already been ripped up by the time planning permission was granted (probably at the instant anyone got some hint their retention was going to be required), but no one seemed to do anything about that.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

"Andrew Gabriel" wrote | However, the planning people aren't consistent. In the meeting, | one of the councillors asked the others "we don't require a | driveway capable of turning round a car off-road do we?", to | which the others answered "no". | I have the planning permission for my house, 2 doors down the road, | which states that the drive must be large enough to enable a car | to be turned around off-road. So you get different rules made up | for different planning applications on the spur of the moment.

I think it is a consistent rule, but depends on the type of road. If it's a residential / housing estate road it's okay to reverse onto the road, but if it's a main road it isn't - I've heard of houses having a turntable in the drive to meet this requirement.

Discrepancy on the same road, I'm not sure - is your drive nearer a junction perhaps.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

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