Lawful Development Certificate (LDC) - Council asks me to drop my appeal as I'm right

buglawton

For an extension that should fall inside LDC rules, I was refused a certificate by the council and then appealed the decision

Now the council is offering that if I withdraw my appeal, they'll grant an identical one and waive the charge. This is all due to the rejection having been a 'mistake' by the council in the first place.

I'm wondering what the best option is.
If I withdraw, does it mean that other people wanting a similar routine extension to their house will not have a precedent to base their own application of an LDC on?

If I don't withdraw, there's still an outside chance that the appeal board will not support my application or will add a complicated planning condition.

Should I be approaching my local councillor to ask why planning policy in my local authority is not more transparent?

This is a real specialist question I admit. Is there perhaps a special forum I could try with the same question?

DRP

maybe try:
http://www.diynot.com/diy/forums/building-regs-planning/

Hoploz

I don't see the benefit if you continue with the appeal - they are giving you the go ahead to do your plan already, aren't they?

pmartin86

So you applied for something, it was denied, you appealed, they looked at it and say

"oh, we made a mistake, as a goodwill we'll get the appeal canceled and not charge the applicant and give them exactly what they wanted in the first place!"

and now you're confused about how to proceed?

casper_g

buglawton wrote: »

I'm wondering what the best option is.
If I withdraw, does it mean that other people wanting a similar routine extension to their house will not have a precedent to base their own application of an LDC on?

Unless I've missed something, other people can't make use of precedents. They just need to have plans that meet the stated conditions to be permitted development!

phoenix_w

pmartin86 wrote: »

and now you're confused about how to proceed?

To me it sounded like the OP is concerned that by dropping the appeal they are not doing "the greater good" and that it may not help other people who are also in the right but are tussling with the council and would like a precedent to help their case.

It depends how bloodyminded you are, OP.....

System

"there is no such thing as precedent in planning" as they like to tell me regularly - it gives them a get out if they have approved something that turns out to be horrific to not make the same mistake again!

Sounds like the council are admitting a mistake here - the thing with this is, if you've incurred any costs in lodging the appeal I would ask them to cover that too

buglawton

I'm probably fretting too much, will probably accept the councils offer which involves cancelling then resubmitting the LDC application.

Just realised that my new application will remain on record as approved and this will serve as a reference for new applicants for similar.

Have to say the council database is extraordinarily hard to search to find other people's approved projects. I only found an identical extension in the same council area by driving around locally.

Thanks for your ideas folks.