Opposing a planning application

We opposed one and the application was withdrawn due to local opposition. We were advised to club together as a street and produce a letter from all of us with genuine reasons rather than general wingeing. We also wrote to our local councillors. The development did go ahead in the end but was much better than the original proposals.

Joining together is a good idea also it helps in your letter to refer directly to the council's planning guidelines/policies that the new development would be in conflict with.

Have a look on your local council's website - there may be some information on planning applications there. If you can find anything on the reasons an application can be rejected, you can base your response around those, and use the council's own phrases etc. There are things that they just won't take into consideration though, so be aware of that and don't waste your energy on those (e.g. they won't take into consideration any potential detrimental effect on house prices in the immediate area, but may well consider any negative impact on "visual amenity", especially if you're in a conservation area).

Hi Your objection should be based around 'material planning considerations' only so this is things like planing policy, neighbour amenity, environmental impact, etc. House value is not a material planning consideration (unfortunately). It's defininitely a good idea to band together as a street and I would lobby your local councillor to make this a 'committee' decision, not an officer one (not criticising council officers as I am one! But committee is your best shot if you think it likely that it would get approved). Your council will (or should) have a criteria on how to 'call in' an item to the planning committee. Then you should get your 3 minutes to put forward your case for objecting. If you comment on a planning application then the council 'should' keep you informed as to whether it is going to committee, when and how you can have your say. Lots of info on http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/ Just as an aside, definitely look into who and how the applicaiton has been advertised to. The local government ombudsman has, in the past, taken a dim view of inadequate advertising of planning applications so I would ask to see your council's policy on how they advertise. Hope this helps, Jas

WTulipS.

I've just done one against a travellers site at the end of my street.

Firstly, just to respond to a couple of Jasmine05's comments. The planning application might be refused if it is contrary to policy so may have to have a officer decision, however, if there are any objections it will automatically go to the planning committee. Speak to your local councillor as they will help, however, if they also sit on the committee and support you in your objection they will have to leave the room when it comes to that item being dealt with so sometimes it's better to seek guidance from a neighbouring councillor iykwim?

You do need to object on planning matters and an objection which is set out clearly, listing each of these and not getting into not relevant matters will be much more favourable.

Is the land already allocated for something? Is the new use a departure from that? what are the future plans for the area? How different is the existing use? Will access etc really change? Will traffic increase? Sorry just trying to think of a few issues. I'll be able to help more later. The planning portal website should help too www.planningportal.gov.uk

HTH

Han xxx

Some really useful advice there, thanks ?

Will check out the planning website as well