Planning guidelines in a conservation area.

The Natural Philosopher · 2009-03-14T11:56:08+00:00

The next house along our road..200meters away so not quite 'neighbours', which is a small 3 bedroom bungalow with an attached double garage, has been bought by a property developer,(for £326k) who has submitted plans.. that at a quick glance look modest, but on closer inspection and calculation are massive. Planning has not yet been granted.plans here?theSeqNo=51570&theApnkey=81023&theModule=1(Those will probably wrap..sorry don't know how to do tinyurl)The first question is this.We are in a conservation area, and a line of leylandii screening this house from our view were felled yesterday.Is this not in itself a violation of planning law?Now the submitted plans include making the existing garage into a sunroom, building a new and larger one up against the boundary, removing the whole roof and replacing it to create a second storey, and the addition of a boot room and a new extension, to turn what was 'advertised' as a 3 bedroom bungalow into a 4 bedroom modern house.Secondly, a couple of hours with the plans and a calculator have supplied the following results.The *total* footprint is increased by 75% if the new garage is taken into account.If neither garage is taken into account, the increase in 'habitable' footprint is 54%.If you bend the thing to include the original garage, but *exclude* the new garage, the increase in foot print is 41%.I thought permitted guidelines were 15% only?The roof ridge on on elevation has increased by 15.4% and on the other by 18%. This is probably within guidelines..comments?However the real vastness of the development comes when you look at the increase in habitable area.That has gone from 136.5 sq meters to 436 sq meters - over three times the area!! 319% increase!!Now I admire the architects use of space and the developers chutzpah, but we are a bit concerned over the replacement of what was once an almost affordable retirement house by a massive suburban style family house, particularly since the new owner appears to be a...