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OTS of us live in lovely period properties, but doing them up can be stressful and more involved than you might think. Here’s how to go about it. decision from the council. Getting planning permission can be tricky - you may think it’s safe to ask for a like-for-like replacement, but that’s not always the case.

I recently applied for planning permission to redo a roof in a conservation area and wanted to replace the leaking plastic guttering with new plastic guttering.

However, the council said that any replacement guttering would have to be cast iron (as it was an opportunity to improve the appearance of the conservation area), which would have greatly increased the cost and probably have been too heavy for the existing roof structure.

We also had rotten sash windows and while double glazing was allowed, the council had rules about how many