A part of our work on domestic retrofit, my old practice once did a scheme for an inter-war semi that included a significant extension. At the behest of the client the extension was a modernist box and was part of a refurbishment that would have made the house zero carbon.

It was refused by the planning authority, not on the basis of its size or impact on the neighbours, but because it did not constitute ‘sustainable development’. This was in 2012 soon after the NPPF first introduced a presumption in favour of ‘sustainable development’. The experience made me realise the double-speak of our discretionary planning system where a presumption in favour of anything stands for very little, and words can mean whatever the case officers say they do.

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