Planning appeal decision
23 - 29 Sackville Road, Bexhill, TN39 3JD
Planning appeal 6001730 at 23 - 29 Sackville Road, Bexhill, TN39 3JD (Rother District Council) was dismissed on 24 March 2026 by Inspector Housden C, by written representations. The main issue, as the Inspector framed it: the effect of the proposal on the occupying conditions of the users of 31 Sackville Road, with specific regard to overlooking from the proposal to its private amenity space.
partial change of use to sui generis 10 person HMO including alterations and extensions
- Authority
- Rother District Council
- Appeal type
- minor · Planning Appeal
- Procedure
- Written Representations
- Development
- residential · Change of use
- Inspector
- Housden C
- Postcode
- TN39 3JD
Main issues, as the Inspector framed them
- the effect of the proposal on the occupying conditions of the users of 31 Sackville Road, with specific regard to overlooking from the proposal to its private amenity space
- whether the proposal would provide suitable living conditions for future occupiers, with specific regard to the location of the communal space, privacy, daylight and sunlight, floor area, outlook and location of the wet rooms
- the living conditions of nearby neighbours with regard to noise and disturbance
What decided it
The significant harm to the living conditions of future occupiers through inadequate communal space access and severe privacy loss, combined with harm to the neighbouring property's amenity space through overlooking, substantially and demonstrably outweighed the housing benefits despite the Council's inability to demonstrate five-year housing land supply.
The significant adverse effects of granting planning permission through harm to the living conditions of future occupiers and existing users of No 31 substantially and demonstrably outweighed the benefits of housing provision on a brownfield town centre site, therefore the presumption in favour of sustainable development did not apply.
What the Inspector cited
- Development plan policies
- Policy OSS4 of the Rother Core Strategy 2014Policy EN3 of the Rother Core Strategy 2014
- National Planning Policy Framework
- Paragraph 11Paragraph 124Paragraph 130Paragraph 135Paragraph 139Paragraph 232
- Judgments
- Bernard Wheatcroft Ltd v Secretary of State for the Environment [JPL, 1982, P37]; Holborn Studios Ltd v The Council of the London Borough of Hackney [2017] EWHC 2823
How the Inspector dealt with each one is set out in the app, in order: the development plan, national policy, housing land supply, other considerations and the planning balance, beside the letter.
See how each was appliedThe decision letter
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The main issues, what decided it, the planning balance and the policies and judgments listed as cited are read from the published letter by Town Planner Pro and are our summary, not the Inspector’s words; the letter itself is the record. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Research, not advice.
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