A landlord’s plans for a 10-bedroom shared house in Earley, where two bedrooms would be in an ‘outbuilding’ in the garden, have been refused.
Kennett Investments wanted permission to turn a house on Elm Road into a house of multiple occupation, or HMO.
But Wokingham Borough Council planning officers said the plans were unacceptable – as the two-bedroom ‘outbuilding’ didn’t contain a kitchen.
In a letter of refusal, the council told Kennett: “The two units contained within the outbuilding would not provide a high standard of amenity or acceptable living conditions for future occupants by reason of the requirement to travel outside and access a separate building for basic day-to-day facilities.”
Original plans said each of the flats in the outbuilding would have their own kitchens.
But council planning officers were concerned that this would mean the outbuilding could be used as a new, separate house.
Kennet Investments amended the plans to remove the outbuilding’s kitchens. But planning officers then said this would result in a ‘poor living environment’ for the tenants. That’s because they would have to ‘leave the building for basic day-to-day use of kitchen facilities’.
They said the fact that neither option was acceptable showed that the plans amounted to an overdevelopment of the site, and the outbuilding should not be used as a primary home.
