Planning take 2?

At the end of 2020, after waiting 5 months since application, we were granted full planning permission. We’ve just re-applied for planning #2!

When we were originally granted planning permission it came with discharge conditions. These are things which the planner need to see before you can do certain things like start on site or move in. Our list of discharge conditions to get started was long with all kinds of geotechnical surveys, structural designs, ecological studies, arboricultural studies, drainage plans and more besides.

The most arduous condition was the structural design. We commissioned an extensive geotechnical survey to provide the structural design parameters to design suitable foundations. Despite the detailed geotechnical study the first structural design put the house on stilts such that even if all the ground disappeared the house would remain. This was kind of cool but it would require a lot of piles to be driven into the ground and seemed suboptimal. The geotechnical engineers suggested a couple of foundation options and one of them was to sit the house on a ‘raft’ which is essentially a big flat concrete slab. Unfortunately neither geotechnical nor structural engineer spoke exactly the same language so things took a while but eventually they found an excellent solution which not only reduces load on the site but also, by extending the lower ground floor, anchors the site better. The downside of this back-and-forth was it took 6 months to get there. The lesson learned is to ensure your professionals have good communication skills.

All the discharge conditions were submitted back to the planning department in January 2022. Slowly over the course of 5 months we could see all the documents being approved without a hitch so we lined a ground worker up to get started in July 2022.

However, bureaucracy struck at the 11th hour. In June 2022 on final review the planning officer decided that the updated drawings changed the building shape in such a way that we had to apply for full planning again. This was surprising as the planning drawings looked exactly the same apart from fewer roof lights and different shaped outdoor steps.

But feeling optimistic that we had all the documents ready we simply needed to re-submit the same drawings. However, bureaucracy struck again as some reports were now more than 2 years old so needed to be re-issued with a new date.

The planning application has now been submitted again and we desperately hope it goes through smoothly, although we’re prepared for another curve ball…

If all goes well we hope to start work in March 2023!