Just a month after the High Court backed new restrictions on basement development in Kensington and Chelsea, Islington council is set to impose similar limits on underground development.
Islington residents and landowners now have just over a week to respond to plans to limit the size of basement extensions, with a formal consultation that began in July set to close on 4 September.
According to the council, soaring property values have led to a steady increase in the number of planning applications for the excavation of large basements in Islington.
In response, its draft planning guidelines propose to limit basement extensions from being more than double the footprint of the original building or taking up 50% or more of the garden, whichever is less. They also resist the excavation of so called “mega-basements” more than one storey in height.
Under the guidelines, applicants for planning permission will be required to provide detailed information on issues including the impact the development would have on surrounding gardens and trees.
Islington council’s executive member for housing and development, Cllr James Murray, said: “Islington has strong planning policies to make sure development in the borough is appropriate. We need to keep them up to date, and as an increasing number of residents have concerns about the excavation of these large basements, we need to set out the limits of what’s acceptable.”
In July, a woman who has been accused of having her multi-million pound Kensington townhouse painted in red and white stripes in protest over a planning dispute with the local authority lost her High Court challenge to its policy on basement developments.
Lang J dismissed the case brought by Zipporah Lisle-Mainwaring and specialist contractors Basement Force seeking to quash Kensington and Chelsea’s rules, similar to those proposed by Islington.
Kensington and Chelsea’s policy also limits such extensions to a single-storey and restricts them to 50% of any garden, with exceptions possible only for “large, comprehensively planned sites”.
