Peterborough councillor’s house extension plans rejected

A parish councillor’s planning application on his own house has been refused by city councillors because the project is “too large and overbearing”.
The proposed extensionThe proposed extension
The proposed extension

The decision was made by members of Peterborough City Council’s Planning & Environmental Protection Committee at a meeting on Tuesday.

The proposal for the property in Maffit Road in Ailsworth would have required the demolition of the existing ground floor rear extension and the construction of a replacement ground floor rear extension, first floor rear extension and cladding of the external walls with replacement of the roof tiles.

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But next door neighbour Dr Ian Baugh, a resident of 33 years, said: “This extension will result in a massive loss of light for my house if it is approved.

“I have carefully studied the track of the sun over a couple of weeks, and the sheer scale, and particularly the height of the proposed extension next door, will reduce the sun on my house by as much as 50 per cent, leaving both upstairs and downstairs rooms and the patio area in their garden gloomy for most of the year.”

Dr Baugh added: “Please don’t misunderstand me – I have no objection to the extension in principle. In the 33 years that we have lived at Maffit Road the house next door has undergone many extensions by several different owners, including a double garage and a two-storey addition, and we have always co-operated and got along with our neighbours.

“My objection to this proposal is that it is completely disproportionate to the relative size of the house, increasing the ground plan by 69 per cent, and that the height of the roof will deny me light on a massive scale, while the Juliet balcony will allow direct visibility into my property.”

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Cllr Hiller enquired: “When you spoke with your neighbour about the project were you able to arrive at any compromises?”

Dr Baugh replied: “We tried, many times, I even said that I would accept the height of the roof if it were lowered by a couple of meters, but he absolutely refuses to alter the plans in any way.”

The applicant is parish councillor Dom Goy, who was not present at the meeting.

Cllr Hiller, who is a the city council ward councillor for Ailsworth, said: “The term ‘overbearing’ has different meanings in a village to that of a city, but clearly here we are talking about an application that would be absolutely overbearing in this location.

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“Putting this extension into context, the height is the mitigating factor and would have a dramatic effect on the next door neighbours subjecting them to something really quite foreboding in terms of light loss.”

Councillors voted to refuse the planning application on the grounds that “it is too large and overbearing, too high and will consequently cause massive loss of light to the neighbour next door”.

Robert Alexander, Local Democracy Reporting Service