LRB statement of case 210125 2024027_Redacted
Argyll and Bute Council · 11 March 2025
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3 2 Discussion As confirmed in the planning report of handling, the application was considered acceptable in all terms other than access. The essential questions on which the planning decision rests are: 1) Whether the proposed change of use generates a material intensification in vehicular activity? 2) Whether deficiencies in the UC73 Drummore Road should - or are sufficient to - justify refusal of an otherwise acceptable proposal? 3) If the proposed change of use would generate an increase in traffic, whether any mitigation measures exist that could enable the change of use to be supported? The Roads Engineer considers that there would be a material intensification of use of an existing sub-standard public road and has accordingly objected to the application. Planning officers supported the Roads Authority objection and issued a refusal under delegated powers. No third-party objections were submitted. The public road in question comprises the UC73 Drummore Road, which forms a cul-de-sac off the A816 Soroba Road to the west and bound by a railway line to the south and east, located towards the southern end of the main settlement of Oban. Drummore Road serves 24 existing houses plus the council owned Eadar Glinn residential care home (which provides 25 bedspaces). We understand that the five houses at the eastern end of the cul- de-sac are served by a shared private access spur in good condition.
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4 3 Background and baseline assessment Glenaros was an established 4-bedroom detached house with a single garage when the appellant purchased the site in August 2020. At that time, a line of trees ran along the south-eastern boundary either side of a pedestrian access gate. The only car parking spaces were provided by the garage and apron in the easternmost corner of the site, as shown in the Google Streetview images below (dated October 2014).
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5 On taking ownership of Glenaros, Mr Maitland set about improving the property, including by removing the roadside trees and adding a driveway plus parking/turning area inside the rear garden (works which did not require planning permission in this instance). Updated Streetview images from November 2021 (below) show the new driveway plus on- site parking/turning clearly visible, in addition to the pre-existing garage and apron:
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6 In August 2022, planning application 22/01765/PP sought to alter and extend the existing house, plus redevelop the garage to form an ancillary residential annexe. The combined effect of the proposals was to create a five-bedroom house plus a one-bedroom annexe within the site. Application 22/01765/PP attracted no objections from the Roads Authority, nor from any member of the public. The Planning Authority assessment verifies that the existing access and parking arrangements were satisfactory to serve the development, and planning permission was accordingly granted on 3 November 2022. The parking arrangements shown on the approved drawings comprise a parking bay at the former garage apron to serve the annexe, plus a separate parking and turning area within the rear garden to serve the main house – reflective of the physical circumstances at the site in 2022. Planning permission 22/01765/PP has since been lawfully implemented. Glenaros contains a five-bedroom house plus a one-bedroom residential annexe. Separate parking provision exists for the house and for the annexe within the site. It is against this baseline planning application 24/01282/PP was submitted. The application only seeks to change the use of the existing one-bedroom residential annexe into a one- bedroom short term holiday letting unit. All other features at the site remain unchanged. The pre-existing approved parking bay serving the annexe would serve the proposed short term holiday letting unit.
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7 (2 current site photographs above - showing the existing house, driveway and parking/turning space in the rear garden, plus the residential annexe with distinct parking space.) Residential annexes and short-term holiday letting units are commonly considered as interchangeable uses where they are ancillary to a main house - with protections to ensure that they do not become separate residential properties. Annexes and STHL units are indeed often proposed and approved within a single application, because the nature of the activity is so similar and whereas the level of traffic generation is dictated by the number of bedspaces within the unit rather than by any fundamental difference between the two activities. Being aware of this practice, the appellant had understood that he would have the freedom to utilise the residential annexe for short term holiday letting purposes arising from the 2022 permission, and the annexe has been provided in place of the former garage. However, a condition on planning permission 22/01765/PP expressly forbids short-term holiday letting. Planning application 24/01282/PP is necessary in order to achieve a short term holiday letting use at the site.
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8 4 Comparative decisions The Local Review Body is invited to compare the following examples of Argyll and Bute Council’s normal practice where residential annexes and short term holiday letting units are proposed. The comparative cases listed below all relate to local sites and the list is restricted to decisions that were taken contemporaneously with the consideration of application 24/01282/PP. 1) 24/01504/PP Proposed conversion of garage to form self-catering annexe 15 Etive Gardens, Oban, PA34 4JP Granted: 2 October 2024 Summary - Planning permission for a residential annexe and short term letting unit granted within a single permission. Planning condition 3 enables either a short term holiday let or a residential annexe use. Provision of a single parking bay is required to serve the unit – with no distinction in parking demand is identified between the two uses by Roads or Planning. 2) 24/01576/PP Erection of annexe for short term holiday letting and family purposes Treetops, Glencruitten, Oban, PA34 4QB Granted: 30 October 2024 Summary - Planning permission for a residential annexe and short term letting unit granted within a single permission. Planning condition 2 enables either a short term holiday let or a residential annexe use. Provision of a single parking bay is required to serve the unit – with no distinction in parking demand is identified between the two uses by Roads or Planning. 3) 24/01856/PP Change of use of annexe to form holiday letting unit Home Farm, Glencruitten, Oban, PA34 4QB Granted: 19 November 2024 Summary - Planning permission to change an existing residential annexe to a short term letting unit granted. No objections from Roads. Pre-existing parking for a single vehicle at the annexe accepted as suitable to serve the STHL use. No intensification of vehicular activity mentioned and no access improvements or increased parking is sought. 4) 24/01972/PP Erection of replacement annexe for ancillary and STHL use Loanfern House, Taynuilt, PA35 1JH Granted: 18 December 2024 Summary - Planning permission granted for demolition of a derelict building and erection of a replacement residential annexe and short term letting unit within a single permission. No objections from Roads. Pre-existing parking for a single vehicle accepted as suitable to serve either use. No intensification of vehicular activity mentioned, nor any access improvements sought. No distinction in parking demand identified between uses. We consider that these decisions represent a clear precedent whereby a single residential annexe and STHL unit are considered equivalent in terms of traffic generation.
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9 5 Planning policy The reason for refusal indicates that the project was deemed to conflict with NPF4 Policy 13 and Local Development Plan 2 Policy 35. NPF4 (2023) Policy 13 – Sustainable Transport – lists its policy intent as: “To encourage, promote and facilitate developments that prioritise walking, wheeling, cycling and public transport for everyday travel and reduce the need to travel unsustainably.” Oban is a highly walkable town, well served with onward transport connections by bus, train, ferry, car and planes. Almost any site close to Oban town centre can fit the objectives of NPF4 to eradicate the need for unsustainable travel. This specific site lies within walking distance of shops, post offices, schools, hospital, fire station and multiple business/employment centres. Soroba Road also provides regular bus services. Policy 13, para (b) states: “Development proposals will be supported where it can be demonstrated that the transport requirements generated have been considered in line with the sustainable travel and investment hierarchies and where appropriate they: i. Provide direct, easy, segregated and safe links to local facilities via walking, wheeling and cycling networks before occupation; ii. Will be accessible by public transport, ideally supporting the use of existing services; iii. Integrate transport modes; iv. Provide low or zero-emission vehicle and cycle charging points in safe and convenient locations, in alignment with building standards; v. Supply safe, secure and convenient cycle parking to meet the needs of users and which is more conveniently located than car parking; vi. Are designed to incorporate safety measures including safe crossings for walking and wheeling and reducing the number and speed of vehicles; vii. Have taken into account, at the earliest stage of design, the transport needs of diverse groups including users with protected characteristics to ensure the safety, ease and needs of all users; and viii. Adequately mitigate any impact on local public access routes.” Policy 13, para (g) continues: “Development proposals that have the potential to affect the operation and safety of the Strategic Transport Network will be fully assessed to determine their impact. Where it has been demonstrated that existing infrastructure does not have the capacity to accommodate a development without adverse impacts on safety or unacceptable impacts on operational performance, the cost of the mitigation measures required to ensure the continued safe and effective operation of the network should be met by the developer.” The alleged conflict with NPF4 Policy 13 is founded on a belief that the application would generate a material intensification of vehicular activity on an existing public road network with deficiencies. However, no such increase in traffic would be generated between the existing and proposed use, and there is therefore no conflict with NPF4 Policy 13.
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10 Turning to policies within the Argyll and Bute Local Development Plan 2 (2024): This proposal is for the change of use of an existing (and approved) one bedroom residential annexe, to form a one bedroom short term holiday letting unit. The alleged conflict with LDP2 Policy 35 is founded on a belief that the application would generate a material intensification of vehicular activity on an existing public road network with deficiencies. However, as set out above, no such increase in traffic would be generated between the existing and proposed uses, and there is therefore no conflict with LDP2 Policy 35. Policy 37 is also relevant to some degree, whereas Glenaros takes access from the private spur at the end of Drummore Road, but there is no conflict with Policy 37 because there is no increase in vehicular activity created by the development. It is acknowledged that Drummore Road does not meet current standards for new public roads, in terms of its acute angle and steep gradient near its junction with Soroba Road, and whereas the pedestrian pavement provision is incomplete - having two gaps along the length of the public road. However, this change of use application would not generate any increase in traffic, and the condition of the public road network is therefore irrelevant. There is no justification in seeking any form of improvement to the public road where no additional traffic is generated by a proposal.
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11 7 Additional mitigation Although we do not consider there to be any increase in vehicular activity generated by this change of use application, certain mitigation measures were debated within the original planning assessment which we must mention, in case they resurface during consideration of this Notice of Review. In recognition of anticipated Roads resistance to application 24/01282/PP, Beaton & McMurchy Architects referenced two recent appeal decisions where holiday pods had been supported within the grounds of existing houses elsewhere in Oban, with a quid-pro- quo control relative to potential B&B activity within the main houses (B&B usage being lawful for up to one bedroom within a three bedroom house, or for up to two bedrooms in a house with four bedrooms or more, under the Class 9 (houses) of the Use Classes (Scotland) Order). Planning permission 20/01542/PP (LRB ref 21/0005/LRB) allowed two new build pods within the grounds of the 5-bedroom Soroba House, Oban, PA34 4SB. Planning permission 22/01001/PP (LRB ref 23/0007/LRB) allowed a single new build pod within the grounds of the 4-bedroom Broom Hill, Ardconnel Hill, Oban, PA34 5DY. In both cases above, delegated refusals had been issued by the Planning Authority based on Roads Authority resistance of the proposals, only for the planning permission to be granted through the Notice of Review process. In both those cases, the LRB determined that the provision of holiday pods could be supported and they attached a planning condition preventing use of the new pods at any time when B&B activity was occurring within the main house – thereby ensuring that there could be no intensification of vehicular use of the respective private shared accesses beyond that which could already lawfully occur in those instances. The planning condition which the LRB has applied in those cases reads: Notwithstanding the provisions of Class 9 of the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) (Scotland) Order 1997 as amended, the new letting units are not to be occupied during any period when the principal dwellinghouse is operating as [or being occupied as] a bed and breakfast or guest house. Reason - in the interests of road safety to ensure that vehicle numbers do not increase from their existing levels. The report of handling on application 24/01282/PP seeks to dispel the relevance of those two LRB decisions from the current application - demonstrating an ongoing lack of acceptance by planning officers of the validity of two Local Review Body decisions. Although a similar condition could be applied at Glenaros, we do not consider the circumstances of the two earlier LRB decisions to be directly relevant to the current appeal case. The former LRB cases both related to new build pods within the grounds of existing houses, whereas the current appeal relates to the change of use of an existing residential annexe into a holiday letting unit. We hope to avoid a distracting debate around the subject of B&B activity, which the LRB has already separately determined, and instead, wish to emphasise that the current appeal proposal generates no increase in traffic beyond the
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12 existing and approved residential annexe at the site. In accordance with the example decisions listed in section 4 of this statement, we assert that Argyll and Bute Council’s Roads and Planning Officers normally consider a residential annexe and a STHL to be equivalent in terms of traffic generation, and interchangeable in nature. We do not understand why the appeal site was considered differently from the four contemporary examples. It might be that a deficiency in the public road network was the cause of initial resistance from the Roads Authority, and references to the two previous LRB approvals of pods within Oban became the erroneous focus of planning officers, but in both cases the Roads and Planning appraisals of application 24/01282/PP lack the required objectivity. Whatever the underlying reasons for officer’s decision were, it does not alter the fact that changing from a one-bedroom residential annexe to a one-bedroom short term holiday let does not generate any additional traffic. The entire justification for the refusal of application 24/01282/PP ignores the baseline circumstances at the site and is therefore predicated on a misunderstanding of the proposal. There is no evidence whatsoever that there would be an increase in vehicular activity or a material intensification in vehicular activity on the existing public road. Any potential differences between traffic levels associated with use of the existing residential annexe compared with its proposed use as a short term holiday let, can be no more than de minimis, having regard to the positive Roads and Planning Authority assessments of the four comparative decisions listed at section 4 of this statement (above).
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14 List of appendices 1) Application form 24/01282/PP 2) Roads Authority consultation response 24/01282/PP 3) Report of Handling 24/01282/PP 4) Decision Notice 24/01282/PP 5) Refused application plans 24/01282/PP 6) Current photographs showing public road approach to site 7) Previous planning permission 22/01765/PP, for residential annexe 8) Decision notice and approved plans: 24/01504/PP (example approval 1) 9) Decision notice and approved plans: 24/01576/PP (example approval 2) 10) Decision notice and approved plans: 24/01856/PP (example approval 3) 11) Decision notice and approved plans: 24/01972/PP (example approval 4)