Homeowner appeals council decision to refuse porch branded '30cm too wide'

A homeowner has appealed after planners refused to allow them to build a porch, ruling it was 30 centimetres too wide.

Alex Crawford, who lives on Dundas Park, Bonnyrigg, wants to expand the entrance to his home with a new porch, which his representatives say was modelled on similar extensions in his neighbourhood.

However, Midlothian Council planners said the proposed depth of the new porch at 2.6 metres was too big, instead asking them to reduce it to 2.3 metres maximum.

Now Mr Crawford has appealed to the council’s Local Review Body, arguing the 30cm difference is ‘negligible’ when it comes to the impact of the porch on the house and the surrounding street.

Challenging the decision by planners to refuse permission for the proposed porch, his agent says: “A reduction of only 300mm would result in a negligible visual difference when viewed from the public street.

“It is therefore difficult to reconcile how an extension that is acceptable at one dimension becomes unacceptable solely because of such a marginal increase.

“This suggests that the proposal is fundamentally acceptable in planning terms and that the refusal is based on a very fine distinction that has little practical or visual impact.”

Planners did not object to the length of the new porch, which would be 5 metres long, and there were no public objections to the extension.

In their report on the original application, planners said the majority of new front porches did not stretch more than two metres from the front wall of the house they are attached to, but they had suggested, as a compromise, that in this case it could be 2.3 metres.

They said: “The agent has responded that both he and the applicant consider that this proposal is not out of character for the locality, as there is a very similar front porch/extension opposite.

“Also, the applicant does not want to reduce the proposal in size as it will not allow them to achieve what they need for future-proofing ground-floor sanitary requirements and a suitable disabled/accessible entrance to the property.”

They refused the original plans, saying the porch would be “over-dominant on the public front elevation and would be very prominent in the streetscene, detracting from both the appearance of the principal elevation of the application property and the street scene.”

The Local Review Body will meet to hear the appeal next week.