Confessions of a Nimby: A hit, a palpable hit

The planning subcommittee was poised to pronounce judgement on the high-density development in Stoke Newington, north London, when a letter from the protest group’s lawyer arrived.

Our lawyer argued that the development ran counter to the council’s own UDP.

First, it was argued that the residents in my block had accrued a prescriptive right to light, having been in situ for in excess of 20 years and having enjoyed a continuous and uninterrupted right to light over the course of that period. Although the conclusions of the applicant’s own daylight survey were not accepted, even this report admitted that some flats would suffer a 44% loss of light. Just to concentrate minds, the letter also warned the council that we would consider legal remedies should the application be approved.

Second it was argued that the proposed scheme would have an unacceptably detrimental effect on the use of our homes due to overlooking – particularly since the proposed homes would have balconies looking out onto ours. Presently we are protected from the horror of being overlooked by a screen of foliage. The council’s own guidance sets out that it wishes to avoid development that results in visual intrusion, unreasonable levels of disturbance or loss of privacy.

Thirdly, it was argued that the development would have an overbearing impact on the area – it was dominating and didn’t fit in in terms of height or design. It was what the protestors had said all along it was: a monstrosity.

The development flies in the face of the UDP

The lawyer was disturbed to find that the planning officer’s submission to the planning committee made no mention of the vast majority of criteria in policy EQ1 of the UDP. ‘The omission does not give a balanced or objective policy basis on which the officer should have made his recommendation, nor does it give the committee the opportunity to take a reasoned and equitable decision.’ In other words the planning officer was talking through his pants and how on earth should the committee be expected to come to a sensible conclusion?
The development, then, is in breech of the council’s own policies and flies in the face of the UDP.

On top of all this was it was pointed out that the applicant had failed to carry out an environmental impact assessment. This was surely a mighty blunder and one that would have opened the matter to judicial review if the scheme had been given approval.
As it was, the application was taken off the agenda for that evening’s planning sub-committee.