An appeal and two planning applications later, the originally refused scheme is now approved in full with very minor alterations.
Our project for a new HMO on Lansdowne Grove in Brent has finally been approved after an appeal and three separate planning applications. It is a useful study in the extent that applicants must go to in order to get fairly simple and uncontroversial applications approved, along with the delays and difficulties caused by overworked planners paying little attention to the detail of submitted documents and plans.
Our original application (24/3565) sought the conversion of a vacant C3 dwelling house to a 7-room, 7-person HMO in Brent in close proximity to Neasden station, along with a dormer window and a rear extension to facilitate the quite stringent space requirements imposed by Brent on new HMOs.
In almost all cases, conversion of a dwellinghouse to a HMO with a maximum 6-person occupancy is permitted development and does not require any planning permission. In Brent, however, an Article 4 direction applies across the entire borough which removes this right, necessitating a planning application for the conversion of a house to any size of HMO. To make things even more difficult, Brent have published an extremely stringent guidance document stipulating size requirements on rooms, kitchens, gardens, transport connectivity, bin storage, green roofs, urban greening factors, concentration of HMOs in the neighbourhood, cycle storage… to name just a few! I would guess that the provision of HMOs in Brent is probably more stringent than anywhere else in the country.
Our original application was refused on several grounds, many of them entirely inaccurate and quite incredulous. We were told, for example, that tenants of HMOs are not allowed double beds, only single beds. The mere drawing of a double bed in some single-person rooms led to ‘considerable confusion’ and was one of the reasons for refusal.
Brent decided that no size of HMO would ever be permitted on this site, due to there being too many HMOs in the area already. One of their policies states that if three of the ten nearest properties are already HMOs, then a new HMO can never be permitted. We had counted only two of the nearest ten properties as HMOs, but Brent decided that there were three, miscounting and combining different properties into one in their calculation.
Submission of revised proposals would always be refused for this reason, forcing us to appeal the scheme. While the appeal was dismissed for other reasons, the inspector agreed with us that only two of the ten nearest properties were HMOs, implying we could, in theory, receive permission for a HMO on the site, subject to addressing the inspector’s other concerns. To achieve this result we submitted an OS plan with ‘door-to-door’ walking distance measured to the nearest 10 centimetres, cross-referencing with postal addresses and Brent’s HMO licensing register.
Approval of revised schemes
Thanks to this decision, we were able to submit a revised scheme to Brent for a 6-person HMO, the maximum permissible without any ground floor extensions, which we omitted to reduce the risk of a refusal. Due to the appeal decision, we did not need to prove that conversion to a HMO was acceptable – simply that Brent’s guidance on room sizes, green roofs, etc had been satisfied. While by no means simple, given the vast extent of this guidance, we were able to do this and our 6-person HMO scheme was approved.
Following this, we submitted for a new 7-room scheme, facilitated by a new ground floor extension which was almost the same as that originally refused – indeed somewhat taller in most areas. However, as the overall dimensions fell strictly within Brent’s guidance document, the revised application was approved. After more than a year, an appeal, and three separate planning applications, we received permission for largely the same development originally judged wholly unacceptable by Brent’s planners.
Concluding remarks
This small case study highlights the extreme lengths that applicants often need to go to in order to get fairly simple things approved. In most cases across the country, similar schemes do not require any form of permission. In Brent, however, HMOs are regulated to the point that receiving permission seems almost impossible. Even if the scheme largely accords with policy and guidance, it could be refused on entirely unreasonable grounds. It is unfortunately beyond the resources of most applicants to successfully appeal and re-apply, making the system quite unfairly balanced against small developers.
There is much more that could be said regarding the specifics of Brent’s HMO regulations, but that may be the subject of a separate article.
For any readers interested in HMO conversions in Brent, I’d be happy to explain some of the particulars or give some brief advice on their schemes. However, most of the details can be found by searching Brent’s planning register for the refused and approved schemes, particularly the ‘appeal statement’ submitted to the inspectorate.
Refused 7-room scheme: 24/3565
Approved 6-room scheme: 25/2562
Approved 7-room scheme: 25/3575
Appeal reference: APP/T5150/W/25/3363599