Kevin's View
The most common complaint I hear is 'Why was my planning permission refused, when my neighbour's wasn't and when Beano Homes got to put up 200 Noddy houses down the road?' To which I have no answer.
Save that 1) all planning is and should be contextual - to the extent that your neighbour might get the permission, you might not; 2) some planning officers are brave and mighty, some are not; 3) there's no accounting for taste, and much as you believe your scheme to be of the first architectural water, your local authority may not.
In a survey taken in recent years, the Town and Country Planning Association discovered that about two-thirds of the half million or so domestic applications were for minor additions and changes to buildings, and that neighbour objections accounted for an enormous amount of administrative time. Speak to any planning officer privately and they will admit that planning is often just a battle ground for neighbourly disputes.
The recent Planning White Paper goes some way towards freeing up domestic applications for minor works, but it fails to provide strong design leadership. If it's going to be easier for me to put up a porch, I think my neighbours and I are all entitled to a strong design code in our street. We need to build to satisfy our own expression but also the community as well.
Architecture is a generous trade, it can make gifts of buildings to you or I where we live. Good planning isn't just about regulating taste, it's about facilitating good design, facilitating those gifts.
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