Wrinkles & Wrangles

Wrinkles & Wrangles in the new regulations.

This commentary expresses our views here at 3D Guides. For the avoidance of doubt we do not wish to imply that they're necessarily endorsed by others.

There's been a flood of criticism in planning circles about the alleged poor drafting of the new regulations and much of this centres on the lack of definitions of words and terms used. Some of these, it is true, are novel: e.g. "principal elevation", "side elevation" which have not been used before in the predecessor regulations so some confusion and disagreement about meaning is not surprising. However, in our view the alleged ambiguities apply, in practice, to very few houses, typically larger detached houses and non-standard designs. For the majority of ordinary popular homes---those we deal with at 3D Guides---there should be very little doubt as to the meaning of most of the words and phrases in the new reg's.

"principal elevation" and "side elevation".  This recent appeal decision puts it very well: the inspector deals robustly with the matter of what should normally be considered a "principal elevation" or a "side elevation". A "principal elevation" is what the ordinary man in the street would find as being obviously the front of the house. A "side elevation" is what the ordinary man in the street would find as being obviously the side of the house.

"rear wall". CLG have made it clear that there can be more than one "rear wall" on a house. Typically this arrangement will be found on Victorian & Edwardian houses---whether terraced, semi-detached or detached---with two-storey rear wings projecting out from the main rear wall; the '3-room-deep' floor plan. Thus there are two 'rear walls' which may be extended from within the dimension limits set under the reg's.

Another very interesting appeal decision further clarified the notion of "extend beyond" in Class A, Limitation A.1(e): the inspector held that, in effect, this limitation controls the depth by which an enlargement may "extend beyond" a rear wall or 'the plane of' such a wall. The council had argued that an enlargement had to be confined to being directly beyond a rear wall and that if such enlargement or part of it went further sideways than the corner of that wall then it wasn't PD. The inspector rejected this argument finding that there were no words in Limitation A.1(e) which could have that effect. That decision has been supported by another inspector in his decision letter dealing with the same subject.

Some caution is needed here: the inspectors findings cannot be applied to the rear wall of a rear wing (typically period terrace houses) being extended beyond. This is because such houses have two rear walls: the aforementioned rear wall of the rear wing and the main rear wall. Enlarging sideways beyond the corner of the rear wing would almost certainly mean the enlargement would "extend beyond" the main rear wall by more than the 3.0 metres permitted even if the enlargement did not itself physically extend from that main rear wall. It matters not that the enlargement leaves a gap between itself and the main rear wall because it would still "extend beyond" it contrary to A.1(e) by more than 3.0 metres.

Many semi-detached houses, however, will benefit from the inspector's ruling in the above case because they have side gardens. Here, a rear extension across the back of a house is not confined in width to the width of the rear wall, but may project sideways beyond the corner of that wall as far as the limits set by Limitation A.1(h)(iii); that is to half the width of the house. In other words a 'side extension' and a 'rear extension' can be combined to wrap around the rear corner of the house. Its worth noting that the GPDO does not use the phrases "side extension" or "rear extension"

"eaves". Believe it or not some people have being arguing that "eaves" include the sloping edge of a roof such as form the edges of, say, a gable. The correct term for these, however, is 'verge' from the Latin vergere meaning to incline or slope. "Eaves" are horizontal; where the lowest edge of a roof meets the top of a wall or overhangs it to a degree. See also this appeal decision wherein the inspector held that the usually very small amount by which "eaves" overhang a wall is to be disregarded when measuring the depth of an extension projecting beyond a wall.

"eaves"...again. Another example of the incorrect use of the word "eaves" is dealt with by an inspector in this case. The LPA had argued that the eaves were the highest edge of the roof! This sort of nonsense does nothing to enhance the credibility and reputation of a council planning department. And appeals to the Planning Inspectorate cost, on average, we believe about £650...... of taxpayers' money. Unlike the case above where the issue was where to measure to---and arguably that needed clarifying---there's no excuse for someone administering PD not to be familiar with basic architectural terminology.

to be continued.......