Move to squeeze new Sandwell flats into house and use garden as car park rejected

A plan to divide a home and ‘squash’ in seven flats and using the back garden as a car park has been rejected by a council for being “substandard.”

Sandwell Council turned down the move to convert the six-bed home in Florence Road in Cape Hill, Smethwick, into seven flats saying the rooms would be too small to live in and the use of a back garden as a car park would cause too much noise and disturbance for neighbours.

Sandwell Council’s planners said the move by Rajeeb Choudhury would be “inadequate, cramped and over intensive” and would provide a “substandard living environment” when rejecting the application.

The home would have been converted into six one-bed flats with an annexe at the rear of the garden converted into a two-bed flat.

Plans accompanying the application showed the home’s current back garden would have been used as a car park that would disturb neighbours using their own gardens.

While against the garden being used as a car park, the council also took issue with what had been proposed saying that not enough spaces would be provided – with only seven included from a minimum of nine – and the spaces provided were too small. Not enough space had been included for cars to manoeuvre or drive past each other, the council also said.

A planning report outlining the decision by Sandwell Council said: “The proposed internal and external amenity space is inadequate and would provide a substandard living environment and cramped form of development which is considered to be over-intensive. 

“The design of the car parking and cycle and waste storage areas is inadequate to properly serve the development.

The development would depart from the established plot structure of the surrounding area, introducing car parking in amongst adjoining residential gardens and thereby raising potential for increased noise and disturbance.”