DC Casebook: Householder Development - Matching dormer allowed despite policy

Planning, 16 May 2008

The inspector acknowledged that the end result showed little regard for the council's guidance on house extensions. Far from being a subordinate feature in the roof, he observed, it had turned the two-storey house into a full three storeys. He opined that the windows were too large compared with the existing ones and this increased the top-heavy and over-dominant appearance of the extension.

He accepted that the dormer had little impact on the street scene because only the part of the extension at the side of the house could be seen and then only from the gardens of immediate neighbours. But this did not necessarily outweigh the conflict with council policies, he held.

However, he went on to consider the most unusual feature of the case - the fact that the other half of the pair of houses had already been extended in a virtually identical way. This would have seriously unbalanced the symmetry of the pair, he reasoned, so the construction of the appeal extension had restored the equilibrium.

He recognised that both extensions were insensitive in design terms and that two wrongs do not necessarily make a right. However, he gave significant weight to the rebalancing effect, concluding that overall the appeal extension benefited the appearance of the pair of houses and their surroundings.

DCS Number 100-054-644

Inspector Chris Trewick; Hearing.