Issue - meetings

REFUSED

Description of application – Construction of 2 summerhouses to rear garden and replacement fence.

Oral representations in objection to and in support of the application were received.  Oral representations from Ward Member, Councillor Peter Dean, in objection to the application were received at the meeting.  Supplementary information and photographs had been received from the applicant and circulated to Members.

Councillor Dean referred to the history of the site and to application 18/01004/FULL6 for the erection of an outdoor swimming pool with raised terrace and to the conditions attached to that permission which had been discharged under application 18/01004/CONDIT.  He had visited the site and his view was as the pool and terrace took up half of the garden the proposed development would be an inappropriate development and it would also be inappropriate in the conservation area.  He also referred to the picket fence between Numbers 59 and 61 that was approximately 1 metre high and he acknowledged it was in a state of disrepair.  However, on both sides of the fence extending to about 1 metre were mature shrubs, foliage and trees and he objected to the removal of this screening.

Councillor Harris had also visited the site and her view was that the photographs received from the applicant did not represent the actual size of the garden and they showed the proposed summerhouses to be out of scale and she objected to the application being an overdevelopment.

The Chairman also referred to the size of the swimming pool and the mature screening between the houses and she objected to the application being inappropriate in the conservation area and contrary to residential amenity in the conservation area.

The Assistant Director (Planning and Building Control) representative informed Members that the site lay adjacent to Urban Open Space and that she had done an exercise to measure the size of the rear taking into account the existing terrace/pool and proposed buildings etc. and the rear garden coverage excluding the pathway would be approx. 25% i.e. 800 square metres.

Members having considered the report, objections and representations, RESOLVED that PERMISSION BE REFUSED for the following reason:-

1. The proposal by reason of the cumulative site coverage at the rear and the impact on the boundary screening would have a detrimental impact on the character of the conservation area and the visual and residential amenities of the area in general, contrary to Policies 37 and 41 of the Bromley Local Plan.