Any Planning experts here?
Discussion
Fair enough....
Without going into too much boring detail, we want to culvert a field ditch at the bottom of our garden so that when we extend the house (for which we already have PP) the house:garden ratio is more or less preserved. Despite the fact that 2 of our neighbours have, with PP, done EXACTLY the same thing, to EXACTLY the same ditch, we have been turned down....
Area is South Wales....
Without going into too much boring detail, we want to culvert a field ditch at the bottom of our garden so that when we extend the house (for which we already have PP) the house:garden ratio is more or less preserved. Despite the fact that 2 of our neighbours have, with PP, done EXACTLY the same thing, to EXACTLY the same ditch, we have been turned down....
Area is South Wales....
WWESTY said:
...we want to culvert a field ditch at the bottom of our garden...
That sounds like an ideal example of where you will get the 'we do things differently these days' response that I suggested above. In the good old days (cue music from Hovis advert), nobody worried much about culverting watercourses.
These days, the whole 'sustainable drainage systems' thing has suddenly become a BIG issue. I can guarantee that the Environment Agency (who are a statutory consultee on the Planning Application) will recommend refusal of any proposal that includes culverting of a watercourse or drainage ditch, and the EA have suddenly found themselves weilding a lot of power in the planning process as a result of current hysteria over climate change and flooding.
As it happens, we've looked at a couple of sites just recently that have existing culverts under them and have been told in no uncertain terms that we'll be expected to open up them up and provide EA-specified clear maintenance margins to either side, if we want to stand any chance of an approval for development. In one case, well need to leave a clear zone 8m to either side from the top of bank (which itself is battered back at a 45 degree angle) - sterilizing a 20m wide strip of land right through the middle of the site - on a watercourse that currently runs in a culvert directly underneath an existing commercial building.
As a resident of Gloucestershire who works in Tewkesbury, I can tell you that you couldn't have picked a worse time to submit a proposal of this sort even if you'd tried!
Edited to add:
Is there any way of turning the situation to your favour? How about widening part of the ditch out to form a pond (thus creating a valuable nature resource and increasing flood capacity), stick a little footbridge over the remaining part of the ditch and form a new garden boundary further back. Brownie points all round from the Planning and EA, and you get an nice feature in the bigger garden you are after?
Edited by Sam_68 on Thursday 20th September 18:51
Sam_68 said:
WWESTY said:
...we want to culvert a field ditch at the bottom of our garden...
That sounds like an ideal example of where you will get the 'we do things differently these days' response that I suggested above. In the good old days (cue music from Hovis advert), nobody worried much about culverting watercourses.
These days, the whole 'sustainable drainage systems' thing has suddenly become a BIG issue. I can guarantee that the Environment Agency (who are a statutory consultee on the Planning Application) will recommend refusal of any proposal that includes culverting of a watercourse or drainage ditch, and the EA have suddenly found themselves weilding a lot of power in the planning process as a result of current hysteria over climate change and flooding.
As it happens, we've looked at a couple of sites just recently that have existing culverts under them and have been told in no uncertain terms that we'll be expected to open up them up and provide EA-specified clear maintenance margins to either side, if we want to stand any chance of an approval for development. In one case, well need to leave a clear zone 8m to either side from the top of bank (which itself is battered back at a 45 degree angle) - sterilizing a 20m wide strip of land right through the middle of the site - on a watercourse that currently runs in a culvert directly underneath an existing commercial building.
As a resident of Gloucestershire who works in Tewkesbury, I can tell you that you couldn't have picked a worse time to submit a proposal of this sort even if you'd tried!
Edited to add:
Is there any way of turning the situation to your favour? How about widening part of the ditch out to form a pond (thus creating a valuable nature resource and increasing flood capacity), stick a little footbridge over the remaining part of the ditch and form a new garden boundary further back. Brownie points all round from the Planning and EA, and you get an nice feature in the bigger garden you are after?
Edited by Sam_68 on Thursday 20th September 18:51
Biggest frustration is that our neighbours only carried out their work within the last 12months.....
The ditch under consideration is about 30 feet in length....and rarely has more than 6" of water in it, maybe a couple of times a year.....
While the "make it a feature" argument has been considered, I'm not sure its really viable.
Other approach I've considered is to come up with a scheme to put decking over it.......but the problem with that would be controlling the weeds etc growing up underneath...
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