Help With Competitive Dinosaur Planning

[skilly1]

Bit of a strange one but...

We have a Dinosaur themed adventure golf, to get planning we had to agree to have nothing over 2m in height, even then the planners were not happy. It was a massive investment and thank goodness successful. People travel 20+ miles to come to us.

Very annoyingly, a business about 7 miles from us, in a very similar market and also same planning council to us, has put planning in for a dinosaur themed adventure golf. I have noted on their plans they have a 3m high dinosaur and waterfalls etc. They have had very basic outline planning granted and have just submitted actual plans with the dinosaurs on them to be approved.

Is it worth putting an objection on the planning portal and if so what’s my angle in the comments on the height issue? Is it worth mentioning there is one 7 miles away, why do we need another? Any suggestions greatly appreciated as I’m trying to protect my business as best I can.

[DaveGoddard]

Best thread title I've seen on here in years.

[ozzuk]

You need to consider what you could raise would be a material planning consideration, some of the reasons are below. Hard to see what you'd complain on, can't see competition being a factor, the more things to draw tourists in the better they would counter.

Overlooking/loss of privacy
Loss of light or overshadowing
Parking
Highway safety
Traffic
Noise
Effect on listed building and conservation area
Layout and density of building
Design, appearance and materials
Government policy
Disabled persons' access
Proposals in the Development Plan
Previous planning decisions (including appeal decisions)
Nature conservation

[Eric Mc]

Tell them that if they erect a T Rex, you are going to counter with a Spinosaurus.

[Scrump]

With a trebuchet and a box of matches you should be able to recreate an asteroid impact 7 miles away.

[Mr MXT]

I don’t have anything serious to add, but you could try diversifying your model… a smoked meat place next door, “Jurassic Pork”?

[Turtle Shed]

Just put in a load of big Dinosaurs and claim that nature found a way.

[Bill]

DaveGoddard said:

Best thread title I've seen on here in years.

Have you (OP) looked at the objections to your own application?

[Origin Unknown]

skilly1 said:

Bit of a strange one but...

We have a Dinosaur themed adventure golf, to get planning we had to agree to have nothing over 2m in height, even then the planners were not happy. It was a massive investment and thank goodness successful. People travel 20+ miles to come to us.

Very annoyingly, a business about 7 miles from us, in a very similar market and also same planning council to us, has put planning in for a dinosaur themed adventure golf. I have noted on their plans they have a 3m high dinosaur and waterfalls etc. They have had very basic outline planning granted and have just submitted actual plans with the dinosaurs on them to be approved.

Is it worth putting an objection on the planning portal and if so what’s my angle in the comments on the height issue? Is it worth mentioning there is one 7 miles away, why do we need another? Any suggestions greatly appreciated as I’m trying to protect my business as best I can.

Put this in Homes, Dardens and Destroy it Yourself and hope someone called Equus finds the thread. He is the HGADIY planning guru

[Equus]

DaveGoddard said:

Best thread title I've seen on here in years.

Either I'm suffering from severe and bizarre deja vu, or the OP has posted on this topic before?

To actually answer the question, you'd need to look at the Officer Reports for both the OP's application and the 'similar' one, to try to understand their reasoning.

...but I suspect that the difference in approach may come down to a planning jargon phrase of 'landscape visual impact'.

If your agent has done a thorough job of preparing the application, he/she will have submitted a document called a 'Landscape Visual Impact Assessment', which basically explains how visible the development is in the wider landscape, what public 'receptors' (locations the public regularly use) it can be seen from, etc.

If you can demonstrate that the development is not in a prominent location and/or is well screened from 'receptors' (possibly by careful hard and soft landscape design) the planners should be more flexible/less restrictive than if not.

Note that the onus is largely on you to prove this, not the Planner to go searching for the evidence themselves: if you've submitted a lousy LVIA (or not submitted one at all), or a lousy lanscaping design, you have yourself partially to blame.

It may well be that the 'other' location was either simply better chosen (or luckier) in terms of Landscape Visual Impact, or that they have done a better job of analysing and/or mitigating it (though your post suggests not the latter, if they submitted a basic outline).


As to whether it is worth objecting on the grounds of local competition: surely we're all in agreement that the World cannot possibly have too many plastic dinosaurs (so long as they're Not In My Back Yard)?

The solution, of course, is an arms race: engage yourself a st-hot Planning Consultant and Landscape Architect and submit an application to vary or remove the Planning condition that limits the size of your dinosaurs, so that your plastic dinosaurs can be bigger than your neighbour's plastic dinosaurs. Anything less than life-sized is a cop-out.



ETA link to previous thread: LINK.

Edited to further add: ...oh, and the serious answer to your question of whether it's worth objecting on the grounds of local competition is, no, it isn't. If I'm understanding you correctly, they have already been granted the Outline consent and are now submitting Reserved Matters? In which case the acceptability of the basic principle of the development is already fixed by the Outline: stable door is open and Barney the Dinosaur has bolted.

Local competition is a valid Planning consideration (the whole purpose of the Planning system is to make sure we have exactly the right balance of housing, retail, employment, healthcare facilities, dinosaur-themed entertainment, etc.), but the time to have raised the objection was at the Outline ('in principle') stage. That 'in principle' agreement has now been established and cannot be rescinded.

Edited by Equus on Wednesday 20th April 19:05

[skilly1]

Thanks Equus for your reply, much appreciated.

To be honest Its not really about me getting bigger dino's, but more about delaying the inevitable so as long as possible, or making them reduce the scale of their plan, maybe with no dinos' allowed.

They have done a very detailed landscape visual impact on the detailed reserved matters application, probably better than ours was. However they are on a main road around housing, and we are in the middle of nowhere. So their impact will be greater in terms of visibility and also noise from the roars.

Is it worth spending money to get someone to do a assessment which I submit? I don't want to be in a situation 12 months down the line where I wish I had done xyz, but on the other hand if there is nothing worth doing then so be it.

You are right about objecting first would have been good but I was not aware of it.

Edited by skilly1 on Wednesday 20th April 18:48

Edited by skilly1 on Wednesday 20th April 18:52

[Joe M]

Jurassic Parr?

[Equus]

skilly1 said:

However they are on a main road around housing, and we are in the middle of nowhere. So their impact will be greater in terms of visibility...

It doesn't necessarily work like that. On the one hand, roads are usually considered less important 'receptors' than footpaths, because on a road most people are passing at speed and will only have a glimpse of the development. On the other, the visual impact of development in an urban or suburban setting is usually less than that in a rural one. If you're in the middle of nowhere, it's possible (unless you have proved by means of your LVIA that it isn't) that the development will be prominently visible from miles away, whereas against an urban or suburban backdrop this is unlikely.

Honest answer is that I think you'd be wasting your money (and being a bit churlish) to spend it on a consultant to object to their RM details. The Outline means that it's effectively all over bar the roaring, so you need to come to terms with that.

Edited by Equus on Wednesday 20th April 19:02

[skilly1]

Thanks, I guess I will have to accept it and just make ours a better venue to visit.....

[Bill]

Joe M said:

Jurassic Parr?

[Simpo Two]

Scrump said:

With a trebuchet and a box of matches you should be able to recreate an asteroid impact 7 miles away.

Brilliant!

As for the 2m ruling, dinosaurs could stand up. So have your T. rex or whatever in the 'leaning forward' position (height 2m) then when little Johnny put his £1 coin up its bum it stands upright... Hinges, that's what you need.