[2025] UKUT 209 (LC)

Retford is a small town in northern Nottinghamshire which lies about 15 miles south east of Doncaster. The A1 trunk road passes to the west of the town which is also served by the East Coast Mainline railway.

Welbeck House and Roche House are part of a small development of four detached houses occupying a rectangular site of about half a hectare (or 1.2 acres) located approximately a mile north east of Retford town centre.

The site was purchased and developed by a company owned by Mr Hardy in 2004. The plan that follows after paragraph 12 shows the arrangement of the houses; Welbeck House is annotated as ‘plot 2’ and Roche House as ‘plot 1’. I have marked the position of the conservatory on the plan and indicated the approximate location of the proposed opening for the new doors.

Mr and Mrs Anthony moved to Welbeck House in 2008 and other than some internal changes have made no alterations to their home since that time. In June 2023 following the receipt of a redundancy payment, they decided to extend their property by constructing a conservatory next to their lounge. The position was adjacent to the boundary with Roche House which meant it was close to Mr and Mrs Hardy’s garage and the utility room which is located behind it. The two houses are separated by a close boarded fence set between concrete posts. It is 1.75 metres in height. A pathway 0.95 metres in width separates the external wall garage/utility room of Roche House from the fence. On the Welbeck House side of the fence there is a gap of 1.1 metres between the fence and the face of the brickwork forming the side wall of the conservatory. The part of Roche House that faces Welbeck House is of single storey construction and the wall adjoining the path contains two windows; one in the garage and the other in the utility room. The garage window has obscured glass, the utility room window is an opening casement with a single pane. The glass is approximately 400mm wide and 950mm high. The utility room also has a door to the back garden. The top half of this door is glazed with obscured glass.

Construction of the conservatory began on Monday 9 October 2023 and ceased just over a week later when Mr Hardy raised an objection on the basis that the conservatory breached a covenant in a transfer of Welbeck House to Mr and Mrs Anthony’s predecessors in title. I could see when I visited that the footings had been dug, brickwork was completed to damp course level but no oversite concrete for the floor had yet been poured. A cavity wall approximately 3.095 metres wide and 1.650 metres high had also been built.

Mr and Mrs Anthony selected a local company, Solar Frame Direct, to undertake the project and plans supplied by them show the conservatory to be 4.0 metres in length and 5.0 metres wide. Initially the apex of the roof was said to be ‘no more than 12 feet’ but at the hearing new dimensions were submitted which confirmed the apex would be 10 feet 6 inches (3.2 metres) in height. The eaves height is specified as 2.1 metres. The following schematic shows the general arrangement.

The glazing frames are to be grey uPVC and the roof covering will be slate with two ‘Velux’ type windows in each roof slope. It was Mr and Mrs Anthony’s understanding, having relied on the advice of Solar Frame Direct, was that neither planning permission nor Building Control approval were required for the project.

As far as the rear wall of the garage at Welbeck House is concerned this elevation already contains a single timber door and a two pane casement window which are separated by approximately 1.5 metres of brickwork. Mr and Mrs Anthony’s intention is to create an opening of up to 3.5 metres in width but no higher than the height of the existing door. Both existing openings may be incorporated but no details were supplied with the application in relation to the door arrangements that would be required to fill such a void.