Extension

Appeal Decision Site visit made on 5 July 2017 by George Arrowsmith BA, MCD, MRTPI an Inspector appointed by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Decision date: 20 July 2017 Appeal Ref: APP/U4610/D/17/3175422 26 Despard Road, Coventry, CV5 7DF  The appeal is made under section 78 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 again st a refusal to grant planning permission.  The appeal is made by Mr Craig Lee against the decision of the Coventry City Council.  The application Ref HH/2017/70292, dated 2 February 2017, was refused by notice dated 12 April 2014.  The development proposed is an extension. Decision 1. The appeal is dismissed. Main Issue 2. The main issue is whether the side extension part of the proposal would be unacceptably harmful to the street scene. Reasons 3. The appeal property sits at one end of a row of semi-detached houses on the east side of Despard Road. All the houses have hipped roofs. Immediately to the north, on the same side of the road, there is a short terrace which has a gable end facing the appeal property. On the opposite side of the road there is another short terrace which has a flat roofed two-storey extension above a garage at No 13. The appeal property itself has a large ungainly dormer extension on its side roof slope. 4. The appeal proposal includes a 2-storey side extension which would replace the existing hipped roof with a gable end. The extension would protrude about one metre forward of the house’s existing front elevation so that it would align approximately with the existing bay windows. I have no doubt that, if the house is extended as proposed, the semi-detached pair to which it belongs will appear seriously unbalanced. 5. Two factors would reduce the visual harm caused by the proposal. First, the street scene is already compromised by the flat roofed extension at No 13. Second, the scene is further compromised by the existing side dormer at the appeal property. The removal of this dormer can be counted as a visual benefit. However, whilst these existing features reduce the net harm caused by the appeal proposal I consider that it would still have a significantly harmful net effect. In reaching this conclusion I have taken account of the scale of the proposed side extension and the fact that it would be set forward of the house’s Appeal Decision APP/U4610/D/17/3175422 2 front elevation. This last feature would introduce a further discordant element into the appearance of the extended pair of houses. 6. I do not consider that the gable ends of the nearby terraces justify changing the appeal property’s hipped roof to a gable. The terraces are distinct elements in the street scene and cannot justifiably be used as models for the roof design of the semi-detached houses. 7. I conclude that the appeal proposal would appear as both incongruous and unsympathetic and would be unacceptably harmful to the street scene. In doing so it would conflict with the objectives of saved policy BE2 in the Coventry Development Plan 2001 and the relevant guidance in the National Planning Policy Framework. 8. The appellant refers to other hip to gable conversions on Upper Eastern Green Lane and Sutton Avenue. These do not appear to involve first floor side extensions and are therefore not directly comparable with the appeal proposal. As the appellant notes, they appear to have been implemented under permitted development rights. Moreover, they do not form part of the street scene in which the appeal proposal would be seen. 9. I do not know the history of the flat roofed side extension at 101 Upper Eastern Green Lane but it is a different type of extension from that proposed and, like the other Upper Eastern Green Lane examples, does not form part of the street scene in which the appeal proposal would be seen. 10.I acknowledge the appellant’s practical reasons for wanting to construct the extension as proposed but these do not outweigh to harm to the street scene. George Arrowsmith INSPECTOR