PLANNING PERMISSION APPROVED
Katie and Andy Thomasson receive their planning permission and Building Regulations for the two cottages — thankful they underwent pre-planning advice
With winter just around the corner, we were keen to make a proper start on our project as soon as possible, in case bad weather puts a stop to our plans before we’d even begun. Thankfully, after a 12-week wait we received planning permission, which meant we could finally start on the foundations and footings.
We were glad to have taken our architect’s advice. Opting to pay a little extra for pre-planning advice before we’d submitted our planning application has potentially saved us much more time (and money) than if we’d gambled on submitting the plans without seeking any. The intention of the pre-planning process is to effectively get a good idea from a planning officer about whether the plans you intend on submitting meet the criteria of the current planning guidelines, and whether they can see any areas in which your plans may get rejected. This can prove invaluable, in our experience.
During our pre-planning meeting, the planning officer walked around the perimeter of the existing building and briefly looked at the proposed extension site. She took photos of a few details particularly relevant to the application and asked whether the building was listed — before snapping a picture of the 1937 date stone. She also photographed the listed hall that lies a few hundred yards to the rear of
the house, suggesting that she would need to check the status of that building to make sure that there weren’t any special conditions that might affect what can be built within a certain boundary.
We made copies of our plans and explained in detail the types of materials we planned on using. We’d anticipated that building the extensions using materials sympathetic to the existing building might help our application, but some councils will ask for a complete contrast to be added in order to distinguish the extension as an ‘evolution’ of the building. Luckily, we’d guessed correctly: the planning officer much preferred the idea of building the intended extensions in stone.
Building Regs approval was issued with certain stipulations (as is usually the case, but this does differ from one building project to another). Certain elements, such as the thickness of insulation (400mm in ‘Cottage 1’, due in part to the extra glazing to be added in the form of bifolding doors), were slightly more scrupulous than anticipated.
We will also be required to provide individual structural calculations for all the supporting steels in the building, while certain beams will also require foundations (and subsequently calculations for these also). This appeared to be the beginning of one of those costs that we’d forgotten to account for — being around £1,000.
We’re hoping (but aren’t too optimistic) that there won’t be too many more of these to come.
Next moNth: BuildiNg BegiNs