Hi, i,m hoping someone can help me , we want to convert our garage to make a bigger kitchen , and we were told that we did not need planning permission, they said we just had to comply with the building regulations , so the council sent us the forms , then yesterday someone from the council rang and said that we do need planning permission after all as the permitted development rights were taken away when the house was built , which was 5 years ago, apparently this is often the case with newer houses, so the guy said that we need to apply for planning permission , does this mean that we will probably be turned down, because of this he said it would be looked upon favourably , but what does this really mean , does anyone know if we are likely to get permission . thanks julie.

Angie would be the best one to answer this.
The only people who know if you are likely to get permission are the council, and I know that sounds obvious when you think about it but you didn't say who advised you in the first instance -it could have been a prospective builder. 'Favourably' suggests you are likely to get the p.permission but they would like the forms etc so they have a record of the changes. If you are losing sleep over this then go see them in person: some of the nicest people work in the planning department!