Planning approval #3!!

This week we had cause to celebrate!! Almost exactly a year after we had our first main planning application approved, the council approved our third one (we’re doing them in stages so it’s not too much to consider all at once). 

This one is to restore the remains of the old farmhouse into a one-bed cottage – with the work split into two phases. The first phase is to complete remedial repair work – over time the building has started to fall apart, with the recent heatwave creating one new hole in the west extension. If the external walls collapse and the [now] internal cob walls are exposed to the elements, it could do real damage – so we want to repair all the external walls, put a proper roof on, and make the building weatherproof and animal-proof. 

Then, once we’ve completed the rest of the site and have saved enough money, we’ll start on phase two, which is to restore it properly into a one-bed cottage. It was important to get approval for the end restoration now, even though we won’t do the work for ages, because we can get all the groundworks done at the same time as the rest of the buildings, and reduce future disruption when we have guests staying. We also didn’t want to spend lots of money on it without knowing for certain that we can earn money from it in future! 

The biggest win is that we’ve got approval to put solar tiles on the south-facing roof and install an air source heat pump. As this is the building that’s officially listed (the rest of the barns are curtilage-listed), we weren’t sure if we’d get permission for that. The fourth planning application we’re waiting for is for solar tiles and air source heat pumps across the rest of the site, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed that this means the council are amenable to our proposals and approve it fairly soon… 

We’ve continued clearing the site in readiness for an imminent (but not-confirmed) start date – pulling up giant weeds and sorting through the once-huge pile of stones (such a mind-numbingly boring job). Hopefully we can finish it with one more day, and the stones we’re saving are good enough for facing the walls and save us some cash. 

And on Friday we completed this year’s nematode spraying. When we moved in, we found huge numbers of codling moth and plum moth in the orchard, destroying about half of our apples and many of our plums. I’ll never forget the first time I cut into an apple and had earwigs running out – I’ve never bitten into an apple since! We started using nematodes after that – you get sent three boxes each containing 10 million nematodes to be sprayed weekly on the trees and on the ground – the idea being that the nematodes (microscopic creatures) eat the larvae. We’ve seen a real improvement in our apple crop, but our plums are still suffering, so we’ve focused the spraying on those trees this year. We’re keeping our fingers crossed… 

The other main task finished this week was to repair the heatwave damage to the lawns. Most of the grass bounced back pretty well, but a few areas were looking really patchy and sad. One of our neighbours was kind enough to lend us his scarifier, and so John’s been working hard to clear the old grass and lay new seed. It looked so nice before the summer, and we’re hoping this will give it a much-needed refresh…