The Appeal

The memory of our appeal that will probably stick with me the longest occurred when we were all standing on site in the rough place the house would be built. My parents had come round for the day to look after the children and when we arrived for the site visit, had spirited them away to look at the boats and throw small objects at the ducks. The inspection took ages, so they returned just as we were positioning ourselves to work out where the house would sit. William staggered directly towards us, his woolly hat pulled down so low over his head that only his nose and enormous grin showed. With his arms out wide so he wouldn't bump into anything, he joyfully shouted out "Daddy!", gave me a big hug, shook our planning consultant's hand and staggered on to the caravan for a juice. After a long morning of earnest discussion, it was a bright ray of sunlight.

The meeting itself was hard to judge. It started at 10am at the council offices with the usual suspects - the inspector, our planning advisor and architect, the council planner, 'Ness and I in attendance. Surprising by their absence were the actual planning officer who has been in charge of the case, and the conservation officer who can (and did) object to our plans as they are in the curtilage of the barn (never get involved in listed buildings if you want quick results). Surprising by their presence were one of our neighbours who had completely independently decided to come along and support us, and our local councillor who said he wanted to present the case of the parish council (who've basically echoed the planners' objections to our designs).

The meeting lasted three hours, then we spent two and a half hours wandering round the countryside looking at the site from various vantage points. The inspector took reams of notes and then called an end to proceedings. We feel we made a solid case and came across as professional and sincere in our aims. After the event, it's hard not to think of various points we should have made, but that's how these things go. Unfortunately, however good our arguments may have been, it comes down to the interpretation of the local and national Planning Policy documents, and specifically whether the appeals officer thinks our house would 'harm the character of the area'. It'll also depend how critically he considers the various arguments made as the planner was adamant that our house would cause catastrophic damage to the countryside. We will apparently find out in five weeks' time from the meeting, so mid January. The inspector was completely poker faced (as he's meant to be) so we have no idea whether we'll 'win' or not.

In fact, as we've explained to various family and friends, we are not dependent on having the appeal upheld. Our aim has always been to produce a house that best suits the plot and whilst we're fairly convinced that the design we've produced is an excellent match, it's certainly not the only house that would work very well on the plot. So why appeal? Why not just submit a different design if the planners aren't keen on this one? The issue is that we have been told so many things that the planning department don't want to see that it's hard to imagine what they would approve. We have very little confidence that we could come up with any alternative design that would receive any more favour than the current one. We hope that even if the appeal is rejected, we shall at least come away with a set of concrete guidelines that we can use to inform a new design. An appeal should at the very least clear the tables and allow us to come up with a new plan that suits everyone's needs.