A bid to create a seven bed House of Multiple Occupation (HMO) that local councillors threw out due to how small some of the rooms were, has been granted permission on appeal.
A central government planning inspector also said South Holland District Council should pay the costs of the applicant because of its ‘unreasonable behaviour resulting in unnecessary or wasted expense’.
In June 2023 the council’s planning committee refused the application to turn a four bedroom home at 5 Stonegate in Spalding, into a seven-bed home for up to nine people who weren’t related to each other.
Chair Coun James Avery said one room was the size of seven sheets of A4 paper.
Coun Bryan Alcock said he could ‘only deduce to sleep you have to stand up’ in the smallest room, and said the designs looked like two bedrooms had open toilets.
“If we’ve got to give permission for a property of this sort of quality to be put on the market and take people’s money it’s coming to a wrong thing,” he said at the time.
South Holland’s planning officers had recommended it be accepted as the rooms met national guidance on size.
And the applicant Mr D Bowden has now successfully appealed that decision.
National planning inspector Catherine Sutton ruled that the council had not ‘adequately explained why the proposal would result in harmful levels of noise and disturbance in this instance,’ and said ‘it is unclear which aspects of the accommodation would be acceptable.’
She said there was an ‘absence of any logical reasoning’.
Speaking at the planning committee meeting last week, officer Mark Simmonds said of the costs being awarded for the appeal: “It probably won’t be a life changing sum of money.
“Overall we’ve still got a very good record on appeals and we’re winning most of them.”
Coun Alcock responded: “It’s on the basis of lack of evidence, so if we’re going down that road in future it’s got to be evidenced base, which means we’ve got to do a bit more work on surveying.
Coun Paul Redgate said: “It’s very clear when we discussed around the standard of living and what people expect, if it’s going to be on evidence base, god help us for what people will be living in in the future.”
* SHDC had two other recent appeals against its decisions dismissed.
Inspectors found in the council’s favour to refuse a proposed experimental home in Sutton St James and a plan for a house on Stockwell Gate North in Whaplode.
