A Sherington infill appeal has succeeded after a Planning Inspector allowed a new single-storey home on garden land beside a listed house in Buckinghamshire. In separate decisions dated 3 November 2026, the Inspector also rejected the applicant’s request for an award of appeal costs against Milton Keynes City Council.
The proposal is for a detached, two-bedroom dwelling at Arbour House, Church Road, with a new vehicle crossover from Carters Close. Councillors had refused permission despite an officer recommendation to approve it. Inspector B Astley-Serougi disagreed with the council on neighbouring amenity and the effect on the setting of the Grade II listed Arbour House.
The Sherington infill appeal is particularly useful because the appellant won permission yet still had to bear the expense of the challenge. The Inspector considered the councillors’ refusal a defensible exercise of planning judgement, even though it reached the wrong result in this instance.
Why the Sherington infill appeal succeeded
Milton Keynes City Council had refused application PLN/2025/2569 for a low, two-bedroom home with a pitched roof element and a green sedum roof. The appeal site forms part of the garden associated with Arbour House, but the Inspector found that its relationship with the historic house was not as straightforward as that boundary might suggest.
The Inspector assessed two main issues: whether the new building would harm nearby homes through loss of privacy, outlook or sunlight, and whether it would affect the setting of the listed building. Those are familiar objections to backland development, but the Sherington infill appeal shows why the physical details and history of each plot matter more than general objections to garden development.
Privacy distances and neighbouring homes
One of the closest neighbouring properties was identified as No 39 Carters Close. The shortest separation to the proposed home would be about 16 metres, with doors to the living area about 17.3 metres away. The council’s residential design guidance refers to a 22-metre minimum back-to-back privacy distance for infill development, but that guidance is a material consideration, not an automatic statutory prohibition.
The Inspector considered the proposed building’s single-storey nature, boundary treatment and surroundings. Even allowing for sizeable windows and a pitched roof rising to approximately five metres, the building would not be unduly dominant. A condition governing boundary treatments could safeguard privacy, while the evidence did not establish an unacceptable loss of sunlight to nearby homes.
For the Sherington infill appeal, this distinction was decisive. A shortfall against a design guide was not treated as sufficient in itself to justify refusal when the actual relationship between buildings was acceptable. The Inspector found compliance with Policy D5 of Plan:MK concerning a good standard of residential amenity.
What historic maps revealed about the listed house
Arbour House is an eighteenth-century Grade II listed dwelling. Historic mapping dating from around 1881 showed its domestic curtilage tightly drawn around the house, with an orchard and fields beyond. The site now being developed had straddled those different historic uses before becoming part of the house’s wider garden.
The Inspector recognised the statutory duty under section 66(1) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990. But the nearby Carters Close housing had already changed how the listed house was experienced. The application land was not seen as an essential undeveloped buffer between the historic village and more modern housing.
The proposed low building, retained boundary treatments and sedum roof were important to that conclusion. The green roof would provide a visual connection with the plot’s former orchard and field character. The council’s Conservation Officer had not objected in principle, subject to conditions, and the Inspector found that the scheme would have no effect on the significance of the listed building.
This part of the Sherington infill appeal demonstrates that a listed building’s setting does not necessarily follow its present ownership or garden boundary. Historic development, intervening housing, views, design and the way a heritage asset is experienced all need to be examined. Our guide to planning officer reports and committee decisions explains why officer advice and elected members’ conclusions can differ.
Why the costs application was refused
Mr Jim Lea also sought a full award of appeal costs. His arguments included the circumstances of the planning panel’s decision, what he considered vague refusal reasons, the lack of support for those reasons and the fact that officers had recommended approval. The Inspector considered the costs application separately from the appeal on planning merits.
The costs decision makes an important point for anyone challenging a committee refusal. Members are not required to accept the recommendation of their professional officers, provided there is a reasoned planning case for reaching a different conclusion. The Inspector accepted that councillors had discussed the application and that their objections concerned matters of planning judgement.
In the Inspector’s words, it remains a matter of planning judgement
. Disagreement with the council’s conclusions did not prove that it had behaved unreasonably or forced the appellant to incur unnecessary expense. The Inspector also found no unreasonable inconsistency merely because the council had considered separation distances without spelling them out in its refusal wording.
The Sherington infill appeal therefore produced two different outcomes: the planning refusal was overturned, but the costs application failed. For those considering an appeal, the practical lesson is to treat the prospect of planning permission and the test for recovering costs as separate questions. Planning Geek’s guide to recovering a planning appeal costs award explains the separate recovery process that would follow if an award were made.
Conditions and the August 2026 NPPF
The Inspector considered the revised National Planning Policy Framework published in August 2026, including its heritage policies and the presumption in favour of sustainable development. Permission was granted subject to a detailed schedule of conditions, addressing such matters as protected species, tree protection, ecological enhancements, drainage, materials, landscaping, parking and cycle storage.
One aspect is particularly relevant to smaller developers. The Inspector did not add a separate condition requiring submission of a Biodiversity Gain Plan. The decision explained that the statutory biodiversity gain condition applies automatically to qualifying permissions unless an exemption or transitional provision applies. It should not be assumed that the absence of a separately drafted condition removes biodiversity obligations.
The Inspector did not accept some additional conditions suggested by objectors, including restrictions on possible patios or raised decking and an independently verified finished-floor survey, because there was insufficient evidence to show they were necessary. Conditions must be justified by the development actually permitted, rather than used to cover every potential future concern.
What the Sherington infill appeal means
This is not a general licence to build in the gardens of historic houses. It is a decision about a particular plot with a particular history, design and relationship to neighbouring properties. Nonetheless, it illustrates that historic mapping and an accurate understanding of heritage setting can be as important as the plan showing today’s garden boundary.
Equally, winning a planning appeal is not proof that councillors acted improperly in refusing the application. The Sherington infill appeal is a reminder to budget for an appeal on the basis that each party normally pays its own costs, and to seek an award only where unreasonable conduct has caused unnecessary or wasted expense.
Appeal decision and sources
Inspector B Astley-Serougi allowed appeal 6013224 on 3 November 2026 and refused the associated costs application. The application reference was PLN/2025/2569. The appeal decision is also available on AppealBase. The quoted passage is from the Inspector’s separate costs decision, published by the Planning Inspectorate under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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