Application No:  20/P0603

Ward:  Wimbledon Park

Officer Recommendation:  Grant Planning Permission Subject to Conditions

Proposal: Excavation of new basement including the insertion of front and rear lightwells

The Planning Technician presented the report.

The Committee received presentations from two objectors who raised points including:

·         It was not clear that all the objections raised had been addressed

·         The Objector raised concerns relating to the basement impact assessment which had been revised on 8 September 2022 after an original submission in May, noting that it was not clear that it was correctly identifying the property it related to within the drawings or the property description and also noting that the technical drawings were dated 2019.

·         In relation to the construction methods statement, if a skip were to be placed in the passing place outside the property there would not be room for deliveries and would half the space within this passing place.

·         Neighbours were concerned that the applicant would seek subsequent applications to convert the property into flats.

·         Objectors requested that conditions be imposed to reduce noise impact, proposing Monday to Friday 8am-4pm with no weekend working and requested that the noise survey be made public.

·         The objector noted that the neighbouring property had previously experienced flooding.

The Agent spoke in response and raised points including:

·         The application had taken 2 years to come to Committee and therefore some drawings dated back to 2019, however it was noted that some revised plans had been submitted when a new case officer took on the application.  

·         In regards to the Basement impact assessment, a full assessment had been undertaken with boreholes specifically on the site to assess the condition of the soil and a condition had been proposed requiring a further assessment be undertaken pre-commencement. A parking logistics plan would also be included.

·         The assessment was site specific and no issues had been found on the site.

·         The duration of the basement build would be 4-5 months with the remainder consisting of internal fitout works.

·         The basement would not affect any amenity to surrounding properties.

·         The Agent stated that the applicant had no interest in future conversions of the property but wanted to build a future family home and any future application for conversion would be required to go through a full planning process in any case.

·         A number of pre commencement conditions were included to address the points raised by objectors.

·         The property was within a Zone 1 flood risk area.

·         There would be no more noise than a standard renovation as the digging would be undertaken systematically by hand and there would therefore be no machinery to cause serious noise.

·         The skip would be removed once the digging works had concluded and any further skips would be placed on the driveway and therefore would not cause any issues in relation to parking.  

In response the Planning Technician advised that structural and flood engineers had carried out full assessments of the scheme and a highways officer had also assessed the scheme. The highways officer had considered the scheme acceptable however requested a condition requiring further information in relation to loading and unloading arrangements. A condition had been included to restrict the hours of construction to no construction on Saturday afternoons/evenings, Sundays or Bank Holidays.

In response to questions from the Committee, Planning Officers advised:

·         Officers considered that the impact was acceptable

·         It was noted that the basement is set back 2.85m from the boundary and was being built under an existing patio

·         If members were concerned regarding construction hours these could be restricted to Monday to Friday and it was possible to condition the hours to be further restricted after excavation works had completed.

In response to questions from the Committee, the Agent responded that:

·         Reducing the construction hours by one hour per day would impact on the delivery and would add another month to the build, allowing works to take place until 1pm on Saturdays would assist in shortening the construction.

Members made comments on the applicant and expressed that they supported reducing the working hours.

The Chair therefore moved to the vote on the Officers’ recommendation with an additional condition restricting the hours of construction to Monday to Friday 8am-6pm with no weekend or bank holiday working.

 RESOLVED: That the Committee GRANTED Planning Permission Subject to Conditions