Planning appeals in Newham

Few conservation areas, but not no heritage

With only 9 conservation areas and 125 listed entries, heritage reasons apply to fewer streets here. Where they do appear, such as on a surviving Victorian street or a listed building's setting, the appeal has to meet the statutory heritage test directly.

Other causes of refusal include overbearing impact on a neighbour, loss of rear garden, poor outlook from habitable rooms and parking. We test each with scaled sections and, where it helps, a shadow study.

Shared housing and Article 4 directions

If the property sits under an Article 4 direction for houses in multiple occupation, a conversion that looks minor on paper may need permission. If your refusal concerned a shared house, the appeal covers room sizes, amenity space and bin storage as well as the principle.

We draw each room with its area, mark the floor-to-ceiling heights and show the layout against the standards the council uses. Landlords sometimes find the problem is one undersized bedroom, which a revised plan can fix without an appeal.

Prior approval and certificates

The council granted 6 large-extension prior approvals and refused 23 in its latest return, and it processed 281 Lawful Development Certificate applications. If your work was refused through either route, the appeal turns on lawfulness or on neighbour impact respectively.

Our Lawful Development Certificate drawings in Newham page explains the evidence we assemble. Our planning drawings in Newham page covers a fresh application.

Appeals for landlords and families in rented homes

In a borough where most homes are rented, the person who instructs us is often a landlord, a managing agent or a family who bought a house to share. The appeal rests on the same planning tests as any other, but the practical questions differ.

A landlord needs to know whether the refused work would have changed the use of the building, because that decides whether a licence or an Article 4 direction applies. A family extending a rented-out house for their own use needs to show that the extension is for a single household.

We ask for the lease or title early, the tenancy position and any licence history. Those facts sit behind the drawings, and an inspector may ask about them.

We also tabulate your scheme against each measurable test in the Altering and Extending your Home SPD and note where the refusal reason relies on one. If you meet them all and the council still refused, the appeal is strong.

Parking, bins and the small details officers cite

Refusals can cite items that look minor: where the bins are kept, whether cycle parking is secure and how far a front garden has been paved. They are minor to the applicant and decisive to the officer.

We draw them in. A front elevation and site plan that show the bin store, the cycle shelter and the planting turn a list of conditions into a visible design. Where the refusal listed several small failings, correcting all of them on revised plans may do more than a statement of appeal.

A householder appeal must still be made within 12 weeks, so check the notice date before considering a redesign and an appeal in parallel.

Timing, cost and the likely route

Newham decided 97.2 per cent of householder cases in time, so notices arrive when expected. The national median for a written-representations householder appeal was 11.6 weeks.

We give you a written view on the notice and a fixed fee for each option.

What we do for a Newham appeal

We write the statement, correct the drawings and have a second chartered technologist check the bundle. The architectural drawings in Newham page lists everything else we offer here.