A Plot on the Landscape

We met Today with Al from PPS, our planning consultant.  Unfortunately it wasn’t a full team to met Al at Waterhall Cottage, but in some ways I think that made it easier as it was just Abi and myself present to question and suggest ideas.

I think I did my typical thing and was so eager to get my ideas and thoughts over I didn’t listen too well to begin with, but once I’d calmed down (this meeting had been going through my head for what seemed like forever) I think it went pretty well.

First things first, it appears any hope of building two new homes on the site are out of the window, not worth pursuing, dead in the water, out of the question, and gone.  We suspected as much, and were ready for Al to say that, and looking at the site gave him no reason to think otherwise.  So the plan now would be to see if there’s a way to play by the book and get two homes here, instead of one rather messy home/office as we have now.

There’s several options open.  Apparently a change in planning law a couple of years back has made this type of development much trickier than it once was.  Hamlets such as ours, which fall outside the main village envelope, once didn’t have as strict policies applied to them as “open countryside”, meaning small scale in-fill developments such as we would like to do were much easier previously than they are now.

However, because the building is currently primarily registered for B1 business use, that could work in our favour.  Not in the terms we originally had considered, that being changing to residential and highlighting the reduction in traffic, noise and such, but rather that it is apparently easier to get permission for businesses than it is for residential in countryside and/or greenbelt land.

Anyway, we gave Al a guided tour of the house and the gardens, entrances, allotments and such, and explained what we’d like to achieve, and also how open minded we are about how to approach things.  We want to live here, long term, so we’re happy to play a long game if needs be to get where we would like to be.  We’re not looking to develop to sell, to make a quick buck, this is an attempt to set up family homes in the village we already consider home.

Based on this, although things don’t seem overly positive and wonderful, I get the feeling that Al and Co. at PPS could well be the ones to look at the rules, look at what we have and where we want to go, and work out a strategy that will hopefully get us at least some of what we’d like to achieve.

Anyway, despite Al’s very down to Earth attitude and strong reminders that whatever he comes back with, at the very best it’s going to be an uphill struggle, I can’t help feeling more positive about our prospects Today than I have for a long time!  Al will “be in touch”, don’t know when, we’re in no rush.  So again it’s back to twiddling thumbs, saving money and worrying about what the worst case scenario could be.

So, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted updated on here, mostly because things have been in the hands of the planners and architects, and secondly as it’s been half term I’ve had two weeks almost full of looking after (read playing with) Alfie (our Son).

The first response back following our pre-planning enquiry was not good. At all. The response read something like “No.” (see previous entry “A Kick in the Balls“), and almost a flat a “No.” as you could imagine. But it did leave questions unanswered, and it felt to me at the time the pre-planning enquiry almost unread.

Anyway, Bethany at Nicholas Tye has since spoken to the very same member of Mid Beds planning who wrote the rather short and negative initial response, and has managed to pull some positives from what appeared to be a dire situation. I have to be honest I was concerned that Nicolas Tye didn’t seem up for a long and drawn out series of negotiations (or, as it should possibly be called, battle) based on how flat the first response appeared to be. But as is often the case speaking to someone gets a better response than emails or letters ever can, and things do seem more bright, but maybe a little convoluted.

Anyway, the long and the short of it appears that while we are, in the eyes of planning policy, in “open countryside” and the greenbelt, it is understood and appreciated that we are in fact flanked by a house and pub (which in turn is opposite commercial buildings, a farm and farm house) on one side, and a tree nursery with a large warehouse, offices, and another residential property on the other. So this puts us in a stronger position than if we were genuinely in the middle of the countryside.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, we love the area here (apart from the road we live too close to, which can get busy at times with speeding traffic) and have no intention or desire to do anything other than improve it, and genuinely make it our home for our family. So we all want to preserve and improve the local environment.

What could also play to our favour is the building is registered (and used) for B1 office use. We do not know the exact terms of this agreement/registration, other than we may have up to 17 vehicles coming in and out for office use. Now, when we make this our home, we have no intention to have it used in the same way for the business (Dawn’s business), so the B1 office use could be a very useful bargaining tool. We will be reducing traffic, noise, access and so on when it’s homes rather than offices. So that could be a very good thing.

But here’s the catch. Plan A is a new home for us (Abi, Alfie and myself), one for Lewis (my brother-in-law) and one for Dawn. It transpires that during the course of the conversation between Bethany and the planning department that it wouldn’t be a problem to replace the current building like-for-like (not what we want at all really), and that there is a glimmer of hope we could work it so we have TWO dwellings. But no more. This leaves three parties wanting homes where we can only have two.

We’ve spoken to the others initially and briefly about this, as we obviously want to keep Alfie (four in July) as settled as possible, especially as he’s due to start at primary school this year, and it seems agreed that we’re probably the most keen to get a place, and we’ve also spoken to Dawn who seems very keen to go ahead and get the recommended planning consultant involved to help us on our quest.

It is a strange situation now though, as we know we’re not all going to get a new home, and if we do the design is going to have be more clever and subtle than we expected. Which in my eyes is no bad thing. The trick is apparently we have to “find a vernacular” and try to design to suit that. Which could be seen as a bad thing, but really could be a very good thing as there’s such a mish-mash of houses from different periods, and many different styles, in the Village in general and in our street that it opens up a lot of possibilities to pick and chose elements we like and try to make those work in a different context. Glad I’m not the architect though, but I think it could be a fun project.

So now we have to get together with Dawn and Lewis to discuss where we want to go from here, who wants what, and how we’re going to achieve it.

As an aside when I spoke to Bethany she suggested we do our part to try and build up a picture of life at the moment, especially the areas we hope to improve on, such as traffic, access and so on. I said it was a shame as the oil tanker came only a couple of weeks ago and blocked off the road (again), and we neglected to take photos. The following morning a car sped (as is so often the case) up to the building, lost control on the bend, and ended up facing the other way partially tangled in some wire supporting a power cable! Maybe someone is smiling down on us after all. I did feel a little guilty taking photos (after checking the driver was OK and didn’t want a cup of tea to calm his nerves), but only a very little bit guilty. How they missed the house I’ll never know, and it was so lucky no traffic or cyclists were coming the other way. But it helps illustrate that this is a dodgy bend/road to have access on to.

So in short we’ve gone from “No.” to a situation of like for like almost certainly less, and two dwellings a real possibility if we can present a strong enough case.