Matters Taken into Account
The Council cannot decide planning applications simply as it
chooses. It is constrained by law and by precedents set in the
Courts about the matters it can legitimately take into account when
making its decisions.
The information below offers guidance about the sort of matters
the Council can take into account. If you write to the Council
about a planning application, you should limit your comments to
these relevant matters. The Council will have no alternative but to
discount comments not relevant to its decision. If it were to do
otherwise it would be acting unlawfully and its decision would be
open to challenge in the Courts.
If you want further guidance about whether or not a particular
matter is relevant, the case officers for the application in the
Planning and Development Unit will be pleased to help you. Their
duties take them out of the office for a considerable part of their
time. It is therefore best to telephone and if they are out leave
them a message that they will try and reply to within 1 working
day. The name of the case officer can be found on the letter
notifying neighbours of an application, on this website or by
telephoning the Planning Enquiries Team on 01233 330264.
Planning legislation says that in deciding a planning
application, the Planning Authority
- shall have regard to the provisions of the development plan, so
far as material to the application and to any other material
considerations, and
- that the determination of an application must be made in
accordance with the Development Plan unless material considerations
indicate otherwise.
Obviously, any relevant provisions of the Development Plan will
be very important in any decision. The main statutory Development
Plan in force for the Ashford Borough is:
In addition to this:
These are important documents which the Council has to take
account of.
All of these development plans are available for inspection at
the Council’s reception area and at the local libraries. They are
also available on or via the Planning Now
and in the Future webpages. You may wish to consult them to see
if there are any proposals or policies which are relevant to the
applications you are interested in.
As well as any relevant provisions of the Development Plan, the
Council must take into account "any other material considerations".
This means considerations which are relevant to land use planning
which now includes the rights contained in the Human Rights Act
1998. It follows that an objection to a planning application on
grounds which reflect only the writer’s personal and private
interests would normally be discounted by the planning
authority.
Examples of private interests which tend to be raised in
representations and which the Council cannot normally take into
account are:-
- a loss of view
- an infringement of rights of light
- a breach of a covenant attaching to land
- a fear that property may be devalued
- a business person’s fear that trade may be lost to a
competitor
It may be that your concern is justified and could legitimately
be taken into account if expressed in a different way. Whilst a
view from a property and rights of light are private issues, it is
a matter of public interest that dwellings should have reasonable
standards of amenity. Thus it is relevant to consider whether a
proposed building or extension would be overbearing in the outlook
from a property, whether it would cause unreasonable loss of light
and whether one dwelling would be directly and unreasonably
overlooked from another. There are no hard and fast rules to decide
these matters. A relationship between buildings which would be
acceptable in a tightly developed town centre location might not be
acceptable in a suburban location or in a village.
A covenant attaching to land is a purely private matter between
the parties to it. The Council will not be bound by it or take it
into account in deciding an application. You may wish to take legal
advice if you think that a development proposal would be in breach
of a covenant.
The value of property is purely a private matter and an
anticipated loss in value is not in itself material to a planning
decision. It may be that the reasons why you fear a loss in value
will themselves be relevant and material considerations which
reflect matters of public interest. You should formulate your
comments on the basis of these matters and not simply suggest that
your property would be devalued.
The Council cannot use its planning powers to discriminate
between businesses that are in competition. For example,
proprietors of existing restaurants may object to a planning
application for a new restaurant on the basis that there are enough
such facilities already and the new restaurant may cause an
existing one to close. Such an objection is seeking to protect
private interests and normally cannot lawfully be a basis for
refusing planning permission.
Exceptionally, it might be possible to argue that the number of
restaurants in a locality is leading to an undesirable change in
its character.
For your assistance, some other examples of typical material
considerations are set out below:
- the effect of a proposal on road safety. Is there a safe access
to the site? Would the traffic created by the development cause
significant hazards to drivers or pedestrians?
- the potential for a proposed building or use to cause
disturbance, including any increased traffic flows, to the
neighbours or in the locality.
- the impact of a building development on the character of its
surroundings. How would a building fit into its setting in terms of
its bulk and its scale?
- the effect of a proposal on nature conservation interests.
- the effect of a proposal on the character or appearance of a
conservation area or on the setting of a listed building.
This list is by no means exhaustive. For further guidance please
speak to a member of the Planning and Development Unit. You should
be aware that, if you write about an application, the Council will
be obliged to make your letter available for inspection by the
public. This will include its publication on the Internet.
You may be worried about some of your personal information being
available on the Internet so if you do comment on an application
you do not have to hand sign the letter, a printed signature will
do and you do not need to provide a telephone number or email
address. We do however need to know where you live if we are to
take your comments into account. If you write to us by email please
send a letter as an attachment so that we do not have to publish
your email address on the Internet.
Note: If you wish to question or comment upon the
conduct of individual officers or elected Councillors, or upon
procedural matters, these should be made via the Borough Council’s
complaints procedure, please see the Formal Complaints
Procedure.
This webpage was updated on
8/9/2010