An excellent appeal win for STAT Planning, testing emerging policy and the “presumption in favour of sustainable development”. It also underlines the need to put forward all benefits arising from the proposal, however small!
The appeal in Leicestershire was for the conversion of a rural building to residential. As the building was not agricultural, the Class Q route was not an option and a full application showing enhancement of the site was submitted.
Although emerging Local Plan policy supported residential change of use of buildings in the countryside, this was given only moderate weight. As the adopted policy was unsupportive of rural conversions and inconsistent with the NPPF, the Inspector applied the presumption in favour of sustainable development.
The Planning Inspector’s conclusion found moderate benefits and moderate harm, but the harm would not significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits, modest though these would be. So, it pays to include every benefit of a scheme to tip the planning scales in favour of development!
The STAT Planning team were able to use the expertise to review the reasons for refusal made by the Council to understand if a case can be made against the reasons. We compiled and submitted a robust Appeal Statement of Case, with the planning benefits being critical to demonstrating that the benefits outweigh the harm.
Image credit – David Granger Architects
