Planning Application - Help please!

Alan2020

Kookaracha said:

Thanks pinkteapot and princeofpounds for the advice - I just thought this forum would be loads of Alans coming at me! 

I am telling you the facts, you are getting embroiled in emotions.
Firstly angles from kitchen are not considered as they are not principal rooms. Anyway, you just need to learn a good lesson before you understand that I am being constructive to your problem and how to get a winning solution. Secondly if your front garden is say 8m deep, I would simply build a triangular porch 6m deep and 3m high just to wind you up at only the cost of upvc panels, would do your head in and in the next application I put in you will write a comment welcoming the proposal

FinallyStoppedLurking

Spite is worse than selfishness. 

UnderOffer

Any one else think Alan is the neighbour 🤔

Sistergold

If there is lots of land in front then this extension makes sense to the applicant? Would you maybe think of whether you could benefit from a similar extension in the future? If you reflect and extension makes sense then you could watch with interest to see if permission will be granted without you doing a thing. 

This plan makes the kitchen bigger without knocking inside walls, also makes use of front garden if that’s too big. 

Only object if really it is more serious than the issue of the view this will help in maintaining neighbourly relations. 

Salemicus

Fwiw I fully agree with @Alan2020 , except I would not be so polite.

Amazing how some people behave. OP happily concedes that her real objection is to the effect on her view -which is not grounds to object. So this forum helps her go through the planning regs with a fine tooth comb to find a technical objection she can raise, even though she doesn't actually care about it, because that way she can try to preserve her view.

I feel very sorry for this neighbour. 

Kookaracha

We don't have any houses behind us...but anyway (I'm sensing Alan is recovering from some past trauma regarding extensions). But just an update from our Planning Officer, our Parish Council have just put in an objection to it this afternoon, so it's nice that it's not just me that thinks its overbearing. The kitchen is classed as a habitable room. It's not about objecting to all extensions, just those that respect the neighbourhood and people around them. They may submit a reduced size extension, which is perfectly fine. There is very little garden space at the front, it really is a squeeze and a shame to lose more hedges and greenery to poorly planned ideas. Loads of space at the back though, it's shame not to utilise that for an extension really. 

Sistergold

Kookaracha said:

We don't have any houses behind us...but anyway (I'm sensing Alan is recovering from some past trauma regarding extensions). But just an update from our Planning Officer, our Parish Council have just put in an objection to it this afternoon, so it's nice that it's not just me that thinks its overbearing. The kitchen is classed as a habitable room. It's not about objecting to all extensions, just those that respect the neighbourhood and people around them. They may submit a reduced size extension, which is perfectly fine. There is very little garden space at the front, it really is a squeeze and a shame to lose more hedges and greenery to poorly planned ideas. Loads of space at the back though, it's shame not to utilise that for an extension really. 

That’s good that it’s not you objecting and if there is not that much space then it should fail anyway and you probably don’t need to do much but watch as it gets declined. I wonder why they wasted time and effort to have such a plan drawn if there is no massive land at the front? Just trying their luck, probably they don’t want to move their kitchen? All has worked out then, so that’s good! 

Rural_Puppy

Two thoughts:
1. Have you tried speaking to your neighbour? Be clear that you have no issue with development, but would prefer it at the rear rather than in front. You could point out that the  parish council has already objected. You don't want to object, but might have no option due to the impact on your property..... etc etc
2. Have you mentioned the application to any other neighbours? Might they also be minded to object?
Personally I have been both the person developing and the neighbour objecting. When I was developing, I showed my neighbour my plans before any application was submitted, and they were fine about the plans and grateful I discussed with them first.
When I objected to a previous neighbours plans for his property, I did win out. But in my letter of objection, I made it very clear that I didn't object to him improving his property, but the plan as submitted was ugly and ridiculous, and in breach of several planning considerations. Keep it to the facts and the planning rules.
Best of luck! 

Kookaracha

Thanks for the comments, RuralPuppy. They mentioned they wanted to build something in passing quite a while back but didn't give me any more info. I just asked to see the plans when they had them...but they never showed us - just submitted it. Seems they didn't mention it to neighbours the other side either, they are the ones that are affected by loss of sunlight too. I would have raised all these concerns ahead of time too as it seems silly risking it if you know the neighbours might object for a legitimate reason. We are on good terms, so there is no need for squabbling for building weird uPVC to get back at them!  We are just a disappointed they didn't run it by us first, might have saved a lot of faffing! I just want to write a fair objection based on rules/regulations, so it's not personal attack on them or some kind of emotional rant I've seen some on applications online. I was asking for advice here are there's so much info to dig through, it's all very overwhelming. Seems extensions are a very polarising topic! Thanks for those who gave constructive feedback.