BUILDING OUTSIDE THE DEVELOPMENT ZONE

“My parents’ smallholding is about half a mile from the village. Their shed, which we wanted to replace with our new home, fell outside the local development zone,” begins Lucy. “We knew getting planning would be a challenge so we hired KVA Planning consultant, Katie Atkinson. Our rationale for building was three-fold: the asbestos shed was dangerous and an eyesore from the road; we needed to live on the smallholding because we planned to take over the business one day; and we wanted to build an affordable home.

“As we approached the end of the eight weeks when the planning officer was expected to respond with a decision on our application, Katie was advised we were heading towards a refusal, despite having nothing but positive comments from the village. She suggested we got in touch with our local councillor, who sat on the planning committee. Lucky for us, he supported our application and ‘called it in’ to the committee so we had a chance for everyone to hear our application. We had to get onto the councillor quickly because an application can’t be ‘called in’ after permission has been refused.

“In September 2016, Sam gave a four-minute speech to the committee on why we wanted to build, and then we listened to them deliberate. The main problem seemed to be a concern that we’d sell the house on. In the end, we won approval with a 8-4 vote – it was a big day for us!

“We were so glad we’d spent time planning the design as there were no conditions and we were able to build exactly to the plans we’d submitted.”