"Ziggy" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 12:15:28 +0100, wrote:

I've just had a letter from the local council saying that there have
been no specific objections to the application but that we would have
to set back the extension by 1 metre from the the existing house in
order to get approval because "(it) would allow the extension to sit
more comfortably with the parent dwelling ...". However the main
purpose of this extension is to gain a double bedroom and reducing the
size of this room by 1 metre would make it a single and useless to us.
We haven't got much space at the back so I don't think it would be
feasable to move the whole thing back by 1m.

The property is not listed and we do not live in a conservation area.
(It's an ordinary 1960's semi).

Round here, upper storeys have to be set back 1 metre from the
boundary. Effectively this renders them uneconomic, as they cost more
to support the upper wall and give less room. The excuse is to prevent
it looking like a terrace. This despite 40% of properties in the
street already having such extensions and planning permission for just
such an extension having been given in another street.. The council
even tried to claim it was a conservation area when I appealed ( a
waste of time as the appeal body even states most appeals fail in its
literature). All the more galling when some detached houses here have
been allowed to literally treble in size.

With house prices as they are here (London), moving to a larger house
is not an option. Quite frankly, planners seem to have lost sight of
the fact that houses are for living in.

They have lost sight that houses must be put on land as well.

Strange as on a programme
this week, one planner was happily talking of the need for housing as
a justification for building in a beauty spot near Aylesbury.

I know of no beauty spots near Aylesbury.