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I don't think you I'll be able to stop them doing this unless they aren't allowed to drive vehicles on that path/road. Is it officially a public footpath or highway? I ask because in most parts of the UK you aren't allowed to drive vehicles on or across a public footpath that's not also a highway. I would try and find out who owns it first. You may have to do a map Search at the Land Registry web site. Make sure you use the real web site as some fakes look better than the real one. If it's public land then I think you would need to ask the highway agency what its status is. Sometimes, but not always, you need permission from the council to create a new vehicular access onto your property. You could ask the council about the possibility of creating an access to your own as the same rules will probably apply to the neighbours. The council are likely to grant permission unless there are good reasons for refusal. Unfortunately the concerns you raised are unlikely to count. Proximity to a busy road junction or dangerous bend is the sort of thing they worry about. If it appears nobody owns the land you could in theory fence it off and after 12 years claim ownership. In the meantime only the legal owner (that might not exist) can evict you. However if other neighbors have established a legal right to use the path then this approach won't work. Clearly some of the above would seriously annoy people that have been using the path/road for access for years so think carefully before you open a can of worms.

What sort of filters are they? Our system is quite crude and the filters are very coarse. Only designed to stop bugs getting in but they can be washed out with a hose.

Traps should only dry out if not used for say two weeks. Check you don't have a design problem with the water being syphoned out. The cure might be to add a AAV.

My mvhr can draw a lot more than expected if I don't keep the filters clean. It once blew a 1A fuse so may have been drawing 250w!!!

You can set up a SIPP for anyone. If under 16/18 the SIPP is usually in your name (or parents name) with the childs initials added. They sometimes refer to this as a "designated" account. They get control when they are 18 I think but cant withdraw it until 55. ISA or a combination of both might be better if they are likely to need access sooner. Generally it's best for you to give the money direct to the child rather than via their parents. That's because if parents give their children money, any income they earn over £100 a year it treated as the parents income. Keep record of payments for IHT purposes (exempt after 7 years).

For longer term investments: Consider topping up your pension and claiming the extra tax relief. Let them worry about investing it for you. Check your/wifes NI record. Currently you can buy missed years for £750 ish and get an extra £250 ish a year pension. That's a pretty good return. Important to get advice because you may not get extra pension if you have already paid enough years. Currently you can back date to 2006 but this is temporary. Normally you can only backdate 6 years. Consider setting up SIPP(s) grand children no matter how young they are. You can put in £2880 a year and 6 months later the government will add another £720 making it up to £3,600 gross even if they aren't tax payers. Free money right there. Double check the amounts as they may have changed? If you want them to have access to the money earlier then look as an JISA or Adult ISA but watch the fees. Perhaps hold off investing in the stock market until Brexit is out of the way. It's not at all obvious how Brexit it will effect the stock market. If you do invest I would look at both UK and overseas. eg UK based funds that invest in a diverse range of UK and overseas companies.

All the forms are here https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200126/applications/70/community_infrastructure_levy/5

Claire, So Outline Permission has been granted and the council have sent a levy liability notice to the current owner? Has the current owner already submitted an Assumption of Liability (Form 1) already? If so then I believe he has to send in a Transfer of assumption of liability (form 4). Otherwise you send in an Assumption of Liability (Form 1) You have to sort the Liability issue before you can submit the Self Build Exemption (Form 7, Part 1). It says that on the form 7. So as I understand it your process will be .. 1) Either Current Owner submits a Transfer of assumption of liability (form 4), OR you send in an Assumption of Liability (Form 1). 2) Apply for and obtain Full Planning Permission/Reserved matters. 3) Apply for Self Build Exemption (Form 7, Part 1) 4) Wait for exemption to be granted! 5) Submit Commencement Notice (Form 6) 6) Wait for acknowledgement of receipt of Commencement Notice! 7) Start work 8) After completion BUT within 6 months submit Self Build Exemption (Form 7, Part 2) Warnings: The essential thing is that you do not start any work on site until you have done all the paperwork for the self-builder exemption. Otherwise you will be liable to pay the CIL. I'm not sure what happens if a previous owner has obtained Outline Planning Permission and then they have started some work on site. Does that preclude the new owner, a self builder, claiming the exemption? If it does then I believe a whole new planning application might be required.

If you want to hand deliverh.. There will be a list of committee members on the council web site somewhere and elsewhere another database/list with their addresses and contact details.

You can either copy the other members yourself or send it to the secretary who should do it for you if you ask. Tell her it's for the next meeting. I would make it a letter rather than an email even if that's how you send it to them.

I would write to the planning officer copy the chairman of the planning committee pointing out the errors (Don't call them lies) in the planning officers report. Wherever possible compare your house to those around it already approved. Our application was helped by having a street scene drawing that showed our house and the buildings either side as viewed from the road. Two versions, one with trees and one without.

We used a prime contractor and he employed two general builders. One mostly did foundations, bricklaying, roof tiling etc. The other did mostly woodwork, plumbing and insulation. There was a lot of overlap between these two and they put up our guttering together.

Regarding the tender documents... Each bidder will send you a quote that includes a lot of assumptions. There will also be provisional amounts included for things like the windows, kitchen, second fix items, landscaping etc. This means you cannot just compare the bottom line on each bid as the assumptions and provisional sums may be different. The cheapest bidder might be the most expensive if he has allowed a lot less for something compared to others. What someone has to do is go through the bids and adjust the bottom line to ensure they are all made on the same basis before you make the comparison. If its a very large project you might wish to pay your own QS to estimate the build cost. Decades ago there were reports of builders colluding over their bids and using a QS would give you a sanity check (at a price).

Would moving house be easier?

How much was the quote for the two storey? Did it have a pitched, tiled roof? Does the single storey design have a pitched or flat roof? How many square feet? Any known complications like building over drains? Why not call or write to the planning officer and ask for an update on your resubmission? Quote him the planning application number. It's now 8 weeks since your original post and your application went in before that so they should have made some progress. There maybe correspondence between him and the Architect on the planning web site. Sounds like the Architect has stopped chasing them as you haven't paid him. That wont help speed things up. You may have to be get a bit proactive. We were living abroad when we applied to build in the UK. Our application dragged on for nine months before decided our Architect wasn't proactive enough. I had to start arranging meetings myself, book aircraft flights, hire cars and hotels to bash heads together.

I know this is for your garage but I recall reading somewhere there was going to be an Approved Document for service entry points. The idea is so new houses can have fibre broadband later. Did that come to anything?

+1 Some fill valves are supplied with pressure restrictors for use on mains pressure systems. Perhaps they left that in?

Concrete. See.. . http://www.nhbc.co.uk/Builders/Technicaladviceandsupport/TechnicalGuidance/61/filedownload,37205,en.pdf

MOT type 1 can vary a lot. We used crushed limestone which contained some dust and was a bit sticky. After being driven on, rained on and baked in the sun it was set up like concrete. Only put it were you really need it or you will need another digger to remove it. It can form a water proof layer so potential run off issue. If you have any trees nearby they might suffer. I suspect it's quite Alkaline? Not sure how other versions like crushed concrete behave.

Hire a wacker plate as well?

I guess the message has got home already but the tax man can be pretty cunning... If they went and asked your bank about the loan you took out to build one of the houses you want the bank to say it's a self build mortgage not a business loan or anything like that. Be careful what you put on social media etc.

I had to get a water main diverted to build our house. I got a quote from the water co but it included VAT. It took ages to get them to agree they should zero rate it. Even then they said they could only do so because I was connecting to the diverted part. This is nonsense because I couldn't built without diverting the main so it comes under works that "enable a house to be constructed" (along side things like demolition). Any way point is I'm glad I got it sorted and got a new quote before I agreed to them doing the work. I can just imagine them sending final demands for non payment if I agreed to their quote inc VAT but only paid ex VAT.

No no that's all wrong :-) I'm sure what you meant to say was that it's your lifelong ambition To build your dream house to live in even if it takes you A few goes to get it just right and you have to move a few times in the process. You're sure it will be eXtremely hard building and keeping your day job at the same time but you think you will manage.

Sometimes you just rocked up and Homebase and found particular rolls of Insulation was cheap that week due to a subsidy from the energy co. Sadly no longer.

I don't think its always necessary to use 110mm ID round pipe. I think the building regs allow soil pipes to be 80mm diameter in some situations?