A recent refusal for the change of use of an existing six bedroom House in Multiple Occupation (HMO) to a seven bedroom HMO has been overturned on appeal. The owner of the Maidenhead property originally received the refusal in January 2018 and sought out support from ET Planning to launch an appeal.
Although the original application was recommend by Council Officer’s for approval, the Council’s Planning Committee gave a refusal due to the detrimental effect on highway safety resulting from the lack of parking offered at the property.
With the assistance of a report from Motion Transport, ET Planning demonstrated that there was no severe detrimental impact on parking or highway safety by increasing an existing HMO by one extra bedroom. The appeal also explained that the property was situated in an extremely sustainable location with both train and bus links located nearby.
As well as providing the reassurance around highway issues, ET Planning also pointed out that this proposal provided affordable accommodation where the average house price in the Borough is more than 50% higher than the regional average. There are approximately 30 licensed HMO’s listed on the Council’s public register, which is an extremely small percentage of the 59,000 dwellings (2011 census) in the Borough. The provision of smaller accommodation units was therefore considered to be in line with the overarching aims of the NPPF and would contribute to achieving an appropriately mixed and sustainable community.
With the points put across by ET Planning in this appeal process, the Planning Inspector resolved this case and allowed the appeal.