‘I’m forced to spend a third more due to red tape’

Abigail Butcher is overhauling a listed cottage, but council delays and out-of-control inflation have caused her budget to climb

I’m trying to turn a ramshackle cottage into my dream home. But I am facing a nightmare combination of red tape and soaring inflation that threatens to derail my plans.

My renovation costs have risen by £100,000 in the time it has taken so far to secure planning permission. That’s my budget ballooning by more than a third. And it’s ongoing: I am still in a stalemate with the council over its choice of bricks.

I knew my project would be difficult. My cottage is Grade II-listed, in a conservation area and an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty – a recipe for trouble. The ridiculously protracted process that is currently required to update, extend and renovate is difficult and expensive enough without factoring in exponentially rising costs and issues with supply.

Material and labour prices have risen by as much as 40pc since I bought the three- bedroom cottage in November 2020. But the council doesn’t appear to give a fig that, while it deliberates what to allow me to do and with what materials, the entire project is fast growing beyond my means.

I doggedly secured the purchase of my cottage through strong competition, lockdowns and sealed bids, despite the fact it needed serious refurbishment, damp treatment and extending (it has just one double and two tiny single rooms on a 0.25 acre plot). Since 2018 its only inhabitants have been bats.

I previously overhauled a listed home in a similar area, so I’m well versed in bureaucratic difficulties. But I am now faced with a triple whammy not only of red tape but of labour shortages and massive price inflation. The construction industry has been hit from all sides thanks to labour shortages linked to Brexit, the supply chain crisis as a consequence of the pandemic and the huge demand for home improvements. The only comfort I can draw is that I’m not alone.

A survey by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, a professional body, found that 84pc of respondents cited material costs to be impeding construction – and it’s a problem that is not going away. The Construction Leadership Council, a government body, said the impact of the war in Ukraine was “only beginning to be felt by UK construction”. The energy crisis is also hitting the cost of steel, cement, glass and other energy-intensive but vital products. On top of that, there were already huge supply problems with timber, plaster, bricks, aircrete blocks and some roofing products.

The CLC said prices had risen by 10pc to 15pc in three months on top of price increases at the end of 2021. The greatest impact, it said, is for small and medium-sized businesses.

And don’t I know it. But the most frustrating part of this is that if the planning process for listed buildings were easier, and if time limits imposed on the local authority’s decision- making – as outlined by the Government in its overhaul of the planning process – were already in place, I might now be happily living in my house with cash to spare.

Instead, I am struggling to comprehend the red tape in which my project is mired. The most recent quote for work is a full £100,000 more than in 2020. I’ve been living with family during the planning process, having sold my previous home in order to buy and unwilling (and unable) to rent indefinitely.

Of course the job of any conservation officer is to preserve the heritage of our buildings, ensure construction is within design guidelines and materials used on listed buildings are suitable for both the style and health of the property. But do they need to be so zealous – especially on such a tiny home with an ugly flatroofed 1960s extension that I’ve been desperate to improve and live in before it deteriorates even more?

Instead, the council’s rigid working practices have meant delay after delay. Thanks to Covid and short-staffing, almost every email I’ve sent has returned an out- of- office message from a recipient who is either sick or on holiday or has left early on a Friday afternoon, leaving communication to stagnate for days, sometimes weeks.

Meanwhile, I watch money slip through my fingers, as well as one set of builders who took another job and government grants for the air source heat pump I must install.

Some 22 months after I submitted a pre-planning application in July 2020, with just one condition to sign off – the bricks – the council has finally allowed me to start demolition of that 1960s extension and groundwork, which began on Tuesday. But I fear that if we cannot agree on a brick, the whole project will again grind to a halt.

The only brick deemed suitable by the council is a heritage brick from Charnwood’s Michelmersh range which, apparently because of Covid, has a 26-week lead time from order to delivery. My builder, my surveyor and I have spent days researching other bricks ( both heritage and otherwise), producing samples that are available now, to no avail. Meanwhile the property, empty and damp since 2018, continues to deteriorate significantly – adding further cost – and grows increasingly vulnerable, as I recently had lead flashing stolen from the roof.

My surveyor, Keith Sangar, who deals with frustrated clients on a daily basis, said the planning system was broken thanks to under- resourced councils. He is now warning clients from the outset of “quite worrying” price rises and material shortages. His own calculations show a 58pc rise in the price of steel since March 2021, 36pc in Thermalite blocks, 34pc in copper tubing and 33pc in gravel.

Having now taken a six-month let on a nearby holiday cottage to oversee the work, if I am finally in my new home come Christmas, will I even be able to eat, let alone heat it? That answer appears to be in the hands of the council.