PL/22/2864/FA REFUSED: Loft Conversion

Valley Way, Gerrards Cross | Buckinghamshire Council Chiltern and South Bucks

Application for Increase in roof height, loft conversion to habitable space including front and rear dormers, single-storey front extension (part retrospective).

View full planning application here.

So looking at the detail, the applicant in this one is to add another floor including a series of dormer windows to the existing large detached house, which appears to be 3 storeys to the front and single storey to the rear, and so sitting on a fairly steeply sloping site.

The house already has the benefit of approval for raising the roof, but this is a second application for a more ambitious scheme. The Planning officer in his report accepts that the neighbourhood is one of large, detached properties, and that the current houses sits quite comfortably in the surroundings with larger properties surrounding, and that there is an opportunity for a larger property here, but the scheme as proposed, illustrated here, totally transforms the character of the existing house and to its detriment.

There is a solution here that we believe would achieve the requirements of the applicant but this is not it. The design just isn’t good enough and the proposed north elevation, which is the front approach in particular is really dominant and confusing, the building looks more like a block of flats than a house! The presentation of the drawings doesn’t help either, the houses needed to be shown in it’s setting, whether it has properties on either side or just trees surrounding them - this would help to inform the designers on what needs to be addressed to push this one over the line. Back to the drawing board on this one, it needs a sensitive touch and a fundamental re-design.  

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