22/1059M: REFUSED Replacement Dwelling | Keepwood, Alderley Edge | Cheshire East Planning Application
22/1059M REFUSED: Replacement Dwelling
Keepwood, Alderley Edge |Cheshire East Planning Application
Demolition of existing dwelling and the erection of a detached two-storey dwelling, with ancillary works.
Link to application here.
This is an interesting one. Its replacement of an existing house with little character in a fairly built-up suburban road, but situated in Green Belt.
Green belt in planning terms is a very different animal. It may not feel like Green Belt, i.e. you may be on a busy road and surrounded by houses, but the fact that it has been given this designation is specifically to prevent the crawl of development taking over the open aspect and character of that area. National planning policies are against anything that might disturb the open character of Green Belts, and although replacement houses are acceptable, they cannot usually be a great deal larger than the original house, or actually the house which would have been evident when these planning law were established in 1948.
In this instance, the existing houses has little character, but the proposal is to replace them with a design which to be honest, has no more character and is very mediocre. The key however, is that the proposed house should not be a great deal larger than the original, and when you work out the volume of the existing against the proposed this is not the case.
There are no strict guidelines on what might be acceptable with regards to the scale of additions in Green Belt, and local authorities can vary between allowing only a 25% addition up to examples I have recently encountered a 60% addition, but really the key aspect is to retain the ‘openness’ and character of the greenbelt.
There are actually only 3 neighbour objections to this which is quite unusual, but the proposal is to double the floor area of the original house and increase the height slightly which is against greenbelt policy. Although the design of the proposed house could be improved and the presentation of the scheme enhanced, the bottom-line is the material increase in size of the house which is not acceptable in Green Belt terms.
In similar situations where the values allow, the answer to this might be the inclusion of a basement in order to reduce the overall additional volume above ground. This is very common now where the location is sought-after and values are high which is the case here in Alderley Edge.
