DreamingTheBuild

I think he might mean a 320m2 slab. Don't know if this is any help but the couple I follow on YT were quoted circa £20K for a 380m2 slab for a polished floor, concrete was around £9K. This was just for the pour and float. In Gloustershire.

There is a concept known as abandonment in planning, if it was burnt down a number of years ago then all rights may be lost. It is something your Conveyencer should check out. If the chalet is said to have been abandoned then you are back to square one re planning unfortunately. Are there services there??? I guess the chances will vary from nothing to some sort of camping related activity to a replacement chalet.

Building regs drawings are the detailed drawing showing how it is going to be built in terms of matierals and regulations. Structural calcs are usually a few hundred quid. £5-7K perhaps??? The most vital thing on this is to get a drains survey because you need to know where the water company sewage pipes are. There are some good books on garage conversions that are only a few pounds. Some are dated now but the principles never change. A good way to do this is to go round and talk to neighbours. What tends to happen is one builder will have done quite a few of these as word gets round they have done a good job. Sometimes these builders are a good way to go and they might be able to take care of all the drawings and building control etc with their own network of people. You might find the good ones are booked out for a year plus. So you can go with architect/arch designer route and then put out for quotes or alternately go to a builder first who has worked on your estate.

My understanding of it is they look entirely at the buildings themselves, objections or no objections. The rules are very clear about minimum seperation distances. All I know is the guy round the corner from me has not found a solution yet, the building he bought is empty and rotting three years later. What is interesting about the OP's house is it could possibly be remodelled and it's possible the OP is holding significant cards as to the development being passed. Probably the remodelling would need planning permission though. It does sound on the face of it that the developer is attempting to take advantage of the OP.

Just round the corner from me a guy bought a closed down care home for £500K and put in for planning for a house only for it to fail on the minimum seperation rule on the house opposite (it is on a very narrow road so it wasn't so obvious at first glance). I'm sure he would gladly pay £100K for the guys opposite to acid etch their windows it that got over the minimum seperation issue! I mean if it is just these windows blocking the developers approval you would be sitting on a goldmine and be looking at a massive sum. But something tells me planning does not work like this...

My opinion on this is the 'agreement' would be useless as regards planning approval, as unless there is a planning condition on your house regarding these windows it would not be enforceable. Widening the situation out the reality is planning officers will base their decision entirely on the existing windows and outlook, so you not objecting will have no impact on their assessment or decision. Obviously they are very alert to situations where a developer and neighbour might be working in tandem. So it won't affect anything in terms of the decision but perhaps the developer is just trying to pacify you and make the build easier. Have others objected??? Perhaps the developer is very keen on their not being too many objections so that the application goes to committee. If this is what you want by all means get an agreement, however in my opinion it will have no bearing on the planning decision. It is only one opinion though, I am just thinking about if you spend money on this agreement and the application gets a refusal. The crux of whether it is refused or passed might come down to whether these windows are in habitable or non habitable rooms.

No problem, it is an interesting question infact. IanR is right in that it is a conversion of the existing building, using the Class Q fallback position. I think one reason is that they are in a very sensitive area as regards bats, all the rooflights have got to have integrated blinds that will shut automatically on a light senistive timer. I therefore think the explanation might be that a replacement building would have had to have been the same form given the light constraints. I also think that because they didn't ever learn about planning and left it all to others to do it for them they became worn out and confused about the process by the end. I don't know the full answer but suspect it was a combination of these two issues.

saveasteading - there is no 'wrong impression' from the videos. They have full planning. I have already explained they have paid £10K for SE input. You are correct that a Class Q report from an SE saying the building can be converted does not mean that you can just go ahead and do it, you have to dig some trial holes and often repair the steel from 1m down, which is what the videos cover. I don't quite know about the inspection process. They have an architect and an SE. The part I am not clear about is can the architect act as the inspector or do they have to appoint an approved inspector or the LABC??? They are building a timber frame inside to support the roof, I don't know how it all works exactly but this is why they are paying so much for SE input. Your thoughts are not wrong in principle but this is a real conversion build, yes it is complex which is why they have spent a lot of money getting to this stage.

LOL I am not connected with them in any way, nor do I have a YouTube channel. As I said above, I thought there might be interest in seeing a live high spec conversion, they are looking at near passive house options. Also it followed on from the 'slab thread' in that is it covering a replacement slab plus repairs to the steel columns. I thought the amount of work needed to the steels would be relevant to people. My only interest is that I have followed these guys for some years, they are genuine, the build is real and genuine.

Hi Ian - I read the thread about the slab build up you contributed to and I could see it does look similar yes. I also get your comment about YT. The fallback position has changed a lot since a landmark case in 2018 I think, can't remember all the details right now but it was the High Court I think, I do know it involved a scheme of four houses which was backed by the council and the judge agreed that the planning officer was correct in his approach. Certainly it seems to have developed a lot since then but there is also a lot of context to it. For example if you are near housing that had planning approval ie post 1948 and the building is just near the red line then prospects for a development of a few houses are good. However if that is not the case and you are more 'open countryside' then the interpretation is still narrow, you are more likely looking at keeping the host building and doing minimal changes to the outside, an outer skin wall is ok but a roof in a different matieral is still a very close call. But anything inside is very relaxed so long as the shape is not being altered. This still presents challenges in a large square building. Their case was very interesting because a replacement roof was refused under Class Q and there is an appeal still pending, my best guess is I think the appeal will be upheld because the totality of all the changes meant that about 60% of the building was being replaced so it did look more of a new build than a conversion. However under planning a replacement roof in different matieral was allowed due to the existing roof being asbestos, which again seems like the right decision. So far costs have been £35K on planning, £6K on building regs drawings and £10K on a Structural Engineer. If I could help one person on here it is to say please do understand from the outset Class Q is not planning! It is a set of rules you have to qualify your application with, it is a fast track system and the onus is very much on you to prove you meet the rules. For that reason it is a very good idea to fully understand the rules yourself, it is a big risk relying on others to do it all for you. As for the concrete slab, they say they can save around £10K by doing it themselves. Must say it worries me they are sweating on £10K so early on, it also seems about the riskiest element in that if it fails after three years and they get damp then the the remedial costs will be huge. They have not discussed budget yet either, you have to balance saving say £50K on labour each year with the possible rise in matierals costs, especially when you factor in a lot of the big costs come near the end.

Thanks for the interest - my situation is it was something I was interested in about eight years ago or so, but at that time there was a lot of confusion over Class Q, I had seen a few concrete barns come up at auction and it piqued my interest. However time has moved on and I am in a conventional house now so my interest is somewhat academic. It was a coincidence really because I had been watching these guys run a DIY channel primarily based around woodwork, but one day they suddenly announced they were going to buy this farm and do a Class Q! Having done quite a lot on the planning side I offered to help with general advice but it turned out they just didn't have any interest in the subject and left it all to their PC (something I had strongly urged them not to do!). Anyway it ended up costing them a lot of money and time unfortunately but they did finally get full planning in early Feb. I know the channel looks a bit larger than life these days but I have seen all their apps so I can promise it is definitely real. The position now is the channel they operate is a bit more geared to 'lifestyle' than it used to be, originally this build was going to be more serious with design and planning talk but that all seems to have gone now. They have no time to answer questions ofcourse so I came back here hoping I could get some answers and also that it would benefit people considering a barn conversion, it's not often you see one in the flesh like this.

Thanks for the detailed reply, the guy doing it Tim has done a slab before for a workshop but it did end up around 10mm high at the edges, I've read levelling slabs is a bit of an art form and a bit like plastering in that experience and know-how comes into it. Also they are only going to make big savings if the lorry can enter the cowshed and they can chute the concrete into the bay each time. But can a 25 tonne lorry go in there without causing damage, there is drainage and pocketed foundations going in aswell as the existing steel frame. Just wondering if that is really possible???

I am still following this 'YouTube' build and the chap now wants to self pour the foundation slab in six stages to keep costs down, he is proposing around 60sqm each time. Is this even possible though? I read that you would have to connect the rebar or mesh through the formwork so that it was still a continuous piece of concrete. Also I read that there could be problems on the edges of these slabs as regards levels. Is this right? They are also compacting the existing MOT with a large angle iron connected to a bucket, is that a valid process?

Guys timber will last for centuries if there is airflow, we have thousands of wooden buildings from the 1600's that are still standing! I have a family member who worked at Portakabin in York for many years, Portakabin did a big study on modular housing some years ago but elected to stay out of it, which looks like a good decision. I think there has always been a degree of boom and bust in the industry as there is the constant issue of volume in order to keep the lights on, so you are quite exposed to what others are doing. But if you take Portakabin, a lot of their business is schools, hospitals and retail, the difference is not all their competitors are in a position to deal with the client demands, especially with hospitals, it's a much harder market to break into compared to housing. I imagine a lot of the modular housebiolders are price takers rather than price makers, so with heating and wages going up it must be difficult.

Perhaps the issue is 'dominance'??? I can see how a single house like your proposal would dominate the houses adjacent, where as a pair of semis do 'bookend' each other. Just a personal opinion. There is also the 'floodgates' issue with a situation like this, is always a tricky one. Perhaps there is a way of having a single house on there that is lower key somehow.