Planning: APPROVED!!! 

It’s been 9 months since we submitted our planning application to convert three of our barns into accommodation, and we finally received approval yesterday! We knew that it was never going to be easy, but to say it’s been a stressful time is an understatement. We expected it to take roughly 3 months – but our mistake not to include plans for the listed Elizabethan Cottage resulted in a significant amount of extra work and additional surveys to establish its condition and approvals for previous work, which added delays. The council also asked us to revise down our proposed extensions and roof windows on the shippon to retain the character of the site, which we’ve agreed to (it wasn’t worth risking having our application turned down). All this time we’ve worried that the council wouldn’t approve our plans  –  or would insist we converted the buildings in an order that was simply unaffordable – we didn’t really have a viable plan B to fall back on. 

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The other good news is that somehow we’ve managed to get our permission without phased commitments to complete the Elizabethan Cottage, which gives us a bit more flexibility about what we do and when – and helps to spread the cost a little more. It took us several weeks to land on a proposal to align each barn completion with a different phase of the Elizabethan cottage restoration, so we could give the council some reassurance that we weren’t going to convert the barns and leave the cottage to ruin. Our final proposal was incredibly ambitious but (we’d hoped) in line with council expectations – so this change in position was quite a surprise, and very welcome!! It appears the extra work went to demonstrate our good intentions for the future of this heritage asset, and that this provided a level of reassurance to the council. Our intention is still to get the application for the cottage done quickly, as we have urgent repair work to start to prevent further decay; we also want to do as much of the groundwork across the site as possible early on – after all, very few people would be keen to rent a cottage in the middle of a building site!! 

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We’re still a long way from breaking ground though…. We need to investigate and finalise our renewable generation options (even more important given the current energy crisis!) and make a decision on what we install – we have a couple of initial meetings lined up, so more on this in the next blog hopefully. As we’re in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty though, and because they’re listed buildings, we’ll need to submit additional planning applications for whatever we decide – there’s no guarantee the council will approve these. 

Next we need to agree our detailed drawings and materials for all three buildings, keeping in line with the existing materials as much as possible. The council have set various conditions to follow – all of which seem sensible and in fact common sense (for example – don’t knock down the historic listed buildings and rebuild them). Agreeing materials and getting council approval for them is one of those conditions so they can make sure we retain the character of the buildings and site.  

Our permissions include Listed Building Consent on the older two barns (that date back at least 200 years), which is important as it formally determines their heritage importance. It does mean though that we have an additional step to complete – which is to get our ‘conservation and heritage statement’ written, detailing the history of the buildings in order to retain the significant elements. 

We can also apply for our bat licence now the council have agreed with our bat protection measures (the four bat boxes already installed and two large bat lofts located in the storage barn and the shippon). This gives us permission to move any bats found during the conversion into these new homes – expertly done by an ecologist who we think will be on site throughout the build. 

Our fifth next step is to arrange a structural survey of the properties, including digging testing pits to check out the foundation situation. When we thought we were going to be tied into doing the Elizabethan Cottage at the same time, we’d pushed ahead with a building survey of both the cottage and the farmhouse to save time – so the results for this will be added into the documentation and used to shape our plans. 

Still so much to do and keep on top of, but it’s such a relief to finally have our primary plans approved!! 

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