Some councils never seem to learn. On one short stretch of Station Road in Hampton, the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames has refused application after application on two neighbouring buildings — and lost on appeal every time. Five appeals, two buildings, and on two occasions an inspector ordered the council to pay the applicant’s costs.
It is worth telling the story, because it shows what happens when a council digs in on a position it cannot defend. Councils are wary of losing appeals, and with good reason: an inspector who finds that a council has behaved unreasonably can order it to pay. On Station Road, Richmond managed it twice.
123 Station Road: four appeals, two costs awards
Number 123 is a two-storey building on the Station Road frontage, in the Hampton Village Conservation Area, with a shop below and redundant offices behind. Over five years it produced four separate appeals, and Richmond lost all four.
It began with the offices at the back. The owner wanted to convert them into small flats — the sort of office-to-residential change that national permitted development rights are designed to allow. Richmond refused, worried about parking. The inspector allowed it: a parking survey showed the street could cope, and the site sits a short walk from Hampton station. A second, smaller conversion followed, was refused on parking again, and allowed again.
Then came the first costs award. Richmond had granted the four-flat scheme, but bolted on a condition banning the future residents from ever applying for a parking permit. The owner appealed the condition. The inspector deleted it — and, unusually, awarded full costs against the council. The reason was simple: Richmond had ignored its own earlier appeal decision on the very same building, and offered no proper explanation for doing so. That is exactly the kind of unreasonable behaviour that can justify a costs award.
Years later, the owner took on the ground-floor unit, then in use as an ironing and dry-cleaning shop, and applied to turn it into a small flat. Richmond refused, to protect the retail frontage. The inspector allowed the change of use — and awarded costs a second time. In its officer’s report the council had described the scheme as “passable” against its own retail policy, only to argue at appeal that it breached that policy after all. Springing a new argument like that, having told the applicant the opposite, put the council on the hook for costs.
119 Station Road: the neighbour, and a “tunnel effect”
Next door at number 119, a different owner had built a first-floor rear extension. Richmond refused it, complaining that it created a “tunnel effect” that harmed the outlook from the neighbour’s patio doors. The inspector allowed it: the projection was modest, the extensions did not close the view in, and there was no real harm. One more appeal on the same short stretch of road, and one more loss for the council.
What it means if you have been refused
The thread running through all five appeals is the same. Time after time, Richmond refused things it should have approved, ignored its own decisions and its own officers, and dug in on positions with no sound planning basis. Every time, an independent inspector saw it and twice made the council pay for it.
The lesson for anyone who has been refused is that a refusal is the council’s opinion, not the last word. Costs awards are uncommon, and winning an appeal does not earn them by itself — they come only where the council has behaved unreasonably. But the possibility is real, and it is one of the reasons councils are wary of defending a weak refusal.
If Richmond, or any council, has refused your extension, conversion or change of use and the reasons do not stack up, that is exactly the sort of case we take on. We run planning appeals in Richmond and across the country on a fixed fee of £399, and we win more than half of the appeals we run. To understand how appeals work first, start with our guide to how to win a planning appeal.
Send us your decision notice and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth appealing. Get in touch — we try to respond within one working day.