Islington is one of the smallest boroughs in the country and one of the most tightly controlled. It is almost entirely built up, much of it Victorian and much of it within a conservation area, and the council looks at what people do to their houses more closely than most. It also refuses a great many applications, and if yours is one of them, you do not have to accept it. You can appeal, and the appeal is decided by an independent planning inspector who does not work for the council and frequently sees things differently.
If Islington has refused your extension, loft, garden office, outbuilding or a change of use, send us the decision notice and your plans and we will give you an honest view, at no charge, on whether an appeal is worth making. If it is, we will handle the whole thing for a fixed fee of £399, with no hidden extras, and we win more than half of the appeals we take on.
Is it worth appealing?
We will tell you before you spend anything. Some refusals are not worth pursuing, but many that come to us are, because a refusal is the council’s view of your scheme, and on appeal that view is tested by someone with no stake in the outcome, who reads the policies afresh and looks at the site as it really is. Objections that read convincingly on a decision notice often lose their force under that kind of examination.
Nationally, about a third of appeals are allowed. We do better, winning more than half of those we take on, because we are selective about the cases we accept and thorough with the ones we do.
Why Islington refuses so much
Islington packs a very large population into a very small area, so almost everyone lives close to a neighbour and almost every alteration is visible to someone. The council has detailed design guidance, the Islington Urban Design Guide among it, and it applies that guidance closely to rear extensions, garden buildings, roof alterations and materials. A great deal of the borough sits within a conservation area, which raises the bar again. The reasons for refusal tend to circle the same themes: harm to the character of the area, an extension or outbuilding said to be too large or too prominent, the “terracing effect” of similar additions running down a row of gardens, and loss of light or privacy to the home next door. All of these are questions of judgement, and an inspector will form their own.
A recent Islington win
We recently won an appeal for a household whose garden office Islington had refused as excessive in scale and wrong in its materials, an 18-square-metre brick outbuilding at the bottom of a long garden. The inspector found it low, well screened and comfortably subservient, and allowed it. You can read the full story here. Garden offices and rear outbuildings are among the things Islington refuses most, and among the refusals inspectors most often overturn, because the gap between the council’s language and the modest building on the ground tends to show up clearly on appeal.
What we actually do
Almost every householder appeal is decided in writing, with no hearing and nothing for you to attend in person. You send us the refusal and the drawings; we write the statement that meets each of the council’s reasons in turn and sets the relevant policies and facts in front of the inspector; the inspector visits and decides. The quality of that written statement decides the appeal, and it is what your £399 buys. If you would like to understand how it works first, our guide to how to win a planning appeal explains it, and appeal or reapply is there if you are unsure which way to go.
Refused in Islington? Send us the notice.
For a householder refusal you have twelve weeks from the date on the decision notice to appeal; for most other applications it is six months. There is no need to rush the decision, but the earlier we see the paperwork, the earlier you will know whether you have a case worth pursuing. Send us the decision notice and your plans and we will tell you, for free, what we think; if it is worth appealing, our fixed fee is £399.
