Pre-Application Advice for a Residential Dwelling (PreApp Case Study #2)
Welcome back to the PreApp blog! In today’s article, we’re going to give you an overview on some advice we recently gave to a user after they submitted a pre-application submission to us in relation to their intention to bring forward application for a residential dwelling in Sevenoaks. Don’t forget, if you’re not already, be sure to follow us across all social media platforms and subscribe to our YouTube channel for weekly video content!
The breakdown of the situation:
So, this particular client was interested in bringing forward a green principal dwelling on a parcel of land that sits outside of a settlement boundary but pretty close to it a greenfield parcel of land in the Sevenoaks district. We reviewed the case, they provided us with some information making use of our online portal and we were able to determine some key statistics.
Now in principal, whilst the feedback to the applicant in this instance was relatively negative and whilst we did try to provide some information to improve their chances, ultimately they’ve gone through a process to limit their cost/risk. They’ve contacted us at PreApp, they’ve had their advice within 3 working days and that has essentially given them clarity at the very earliest stage on the chances of achieving planning permission.
The breakdown of the advice:
The client provided us with some information via our online portal and we concluded that statistically, this type of application within the Sevenoaks area succeeded at around 75% of the time. However, in most circumstances those applications had been thoroughly prepared and they’d gone through a systematic approach so as to make sure that they accord with planning policy.
A lot of those applications had also taken advantage of a scenario whereby Sevenoaks itself did not have a 5 year housing supply, so on land that they have that sits outside of the Green Belt, that is strategically targeted by developers, they are able to demonstrate a suitability of bringing forward new residential dwellings outside of settlement boundaries. In this particular case, this isn’t the same circumstance, the land itself was sitting both in an area of outstanding natural beauty location, within the green belt and had a number of tree protection orders on trees dotted around its outer boundaries.
So, we considered that the position statically presented by the data was slightly disingenuous within the context of this application and we actually considered the chance of getting planning permission based upon the information provided and the ideas of the applicant was seeking to implement to sit at around 20%.
In this particular case, we provided a rationale as to why we came to that conclusion given the clear departure from the collection of data provided by their local planning authority and the statistical chance of getting planning permission off the back of it. We also gave some recommendations as to what they could do, for example, we considered that the one opportune situation would be to provide a very high quality bespoke submission that sought to achieve an outstanding degree of architectural quality to the area so as to essentially identify what we call a Paragraph 80 Development. However, the downside of this particular approach is the cost and processes associated with it, so it would be substantial architectural cost, the requirements to meet certain aspects and whether that cost/risk was still applicable.
In this particular circumstance, we advised the client that if they went down that route, the chances of success would increase to a position in balance, so around 50% and would ultimately come down to the subjective view point of the local planning authority on whether the development brought forward would meet the excellent innovative standards of architectural design required to invoke that particular policy. But what was ultimately concluded was that statistically and professionally speaking, the client stood a very limited chance of gaining planning permission based upon the circumstances associated with the case they presented to us.
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