The previous application for this site was refused due to the unacceptable overlooking and overshadowing the building would cause our home. The Officer’s Report suggests that the amount of overshadowing will be acceptable in the current proposal. I strongly believe this is NOT the case.

Severe, unacceptable overshadowing of our home will be caused by this proposal. It will be comparable to, and in some ways worse than, the overshadowing caused by the previous application. This is not made apparent by the architects’ diagrams, which are incorrect and unhelpful.

I will explain this in more detail. In the previous application, the part of the building closest to our home consisted of 2 and 3 storey elements, with flat roofs. In the current application, the closest part of the building consists of 2 storeys with a pitched roof.

This means that the height of the shadow casting elements has changed from 10.6 and 7.2 metres, to a consistent 9.3 metres. Note that due to the addition of a pitched roof, the lower element has been raised by over 2 metres. This will cast longer shadows than the previous design.

Our home stands on land 1.5 metres lower than that of the development site. Any building on the dairy site will be 1.5 metres higher. The roof ridge of the two storey part of Block B, which would be 9.3 metres above the dairy site, will be 10.8 metres above the land our house is on.

How will a building of this height affect our property? The architects’ sun path analysis diagrams are unhelpful, for the following reasons.

First of all, they show Block B around 5m further away from the boundary wall than it appears on other plans. Of course, this moves the shadows away from our house, but it does not reflect the true position of the proposed building.

Second, the height difference between the two sites is not included in the model used, meaning that the shadows produced by the model are too short.

Thirdly, they present a diagram as “winter” when the shadows are of a length which will be produced in the middle of October. In terms of light this is not representative of winter.

Fourthly, they present diagrams which show dawn and noon, but with nothing in-between. At dawn the shadows will be very long. At noon, the shadows will be at their shortest. These diagrams tell us very little about how the proposed building will affect our home during the morning.

I would like to show a diagram I believe to be much more representative.

This shows the shadows cast by Block B on the 6th of November at 10:30am. The date has been chosen as it is the midpoint between the equinox and the winter solstice. For 3 months of the year the shadows will be worse than shown here. The shadows will be cast a long way up the wall of our house, blocking light to the lower windows. The diagram shows clearly that overshadowing of the house continues well into the morning.

The new proposal has increased the height of the 2 storey elements by adding a pitched roof. When compared with the previous design, the shadows cast by this part of the development will be longer, and cause greater overshadowing of our home.

Overall, I believe the overshadowing from the current proposal will be similar or worse to the unacceptable overshadowing which caused the previous proposal to be rejected

I believe the proposal should be refused on these grounds.