A Marlow couple cannot bulldoze a bungalow and replace it with a three-bedroom, three-storey home with a car lift, Buckinghamshire Council has ruled.

Planning officers refused to grant Mr and Mrs Leonard permission for their plans for the home in Cromwell Gardens due partly to parking concerns.

Council officers said: “The proposal fails to make adequate provision within the site for parking and manoeuvring of vehicles clear of the highway.

“The development, if permitted, would likely lead to additional on-street parking and to vehicles reversing onto or off of the highway to the detriment of public and highway safety.”

The applicants said their plans provided ‘sufficient’ parking spaces for three cars, two of which would be on the driveway, with a third in the car lift.

Planners also refused to grant permission for the plans, because they said the proposed new home would ‘create unacceptable living conditions’ for the occupants of neighbouring Valentine Cottage due to ‘unacceptable overlooking’ from the rear windows.

Mrs Pauline Robinson, who lives in the cottage, said that while the proposed design of the new house was ‘pleasing from the front’, the five windows at the back would have an ‘enormous adverse’ effect on her privacy.

In a letter of objection, she wrote: “I do not want to feel constantly uncomfortable in my garden and on my patio, especially during the summer months.”

Officers also said the applicants had not shown that the car lift would not create a ‘harmful noise nuisance’.