Last Wednesday (16th October) at the meeting of Fermanagh and Omagh District Council’s Planning Committee, a single resident, along with the support of her local councillor, persuaded the Committee to refuse planning permission for an extension to a dwelling in Enniskillen that the planners had recommended for approval.
In processing applications for planning permission, the final decision will often be made by the council’s professional planners. However, there are occasions when a council’s Planning Committee, which is made up of councillors, will “call in” an application for consideration by the Committee. The call in of a planning application to a meeting of the Planning Committee, allows interested parties the opportunity to make a verbal representation provided that they have been granted speaking rights.
The case of the house extension in Enniskillen was one such application that had been “called in”. The proposed development comprised a flat roofed single storey extension to the rear of a semi-detached house. Despite receiving thirteen letters of objection in total, the planners considered that the proposal was acceptable, and presented a recommendation to grant planning permission to the Planning Committee in September. The application was then deferred at the September meeting to allow Committee members an opportunity to visit the site.
At the meeting last week a neighbouring resident provided a detailed case against the granting of permission for the house extension, and a councillor (though not one on the Planning Committee) also made a case of objection. There then followed a very lengthy discussion which concluded in the Planning Committee considering that planning permission ought to be refused given concerns regarding scale and massing, and perceived loss of privacy.
This was a very interesting turn around of the recommendation of the professional planners, who had apparently considered the proposal in detail against the relevant policy and guidance and had found it to be acceptable.
Planning policy or guidance is often worded in such a way to confirm that permission will be granted, provided that certain criteria are met, and unfortunately where policy is framed in such a way, it has the potential to induce a “tick box” approach to decision making that directs the decision maker towards the automatic grant of planning permission, and diverts them from the bigger picture.
The Enniskillen case is a reminder of just how subjective the planning process can be, and that a local resident’s perspective on a development can sometimes be more compelling than whether a proposal meets a set of written criteria.
There remains the possibility that planning permission could be granted yet, as the applicant can avail of their right to an appeal to the Planning Appeals Commission. However, had the decision gone the other way, the third party objector would not have the same right to make an appeal against the granting of planning permission; a point that serves to highlight that the planning system may be perceived as being weighted in favour of allowing the development of land.
