Drellingore

'ello, a bit of a vague one this, but in my defence I did search the forums for a full minute before posting! We've had positive noises from the planners (three months after the determination deadline) that modulo a few tweaks, they might approve the application. Only took us four years. Anyway, I've been avoiding swotting up on the next steps because I didn't want to jinx things, and while making this post is sure to tempt the gods of fate into declining the application, I should probably start figuring out WTF I have to do next. I've got a call with the architect tomorrow, I've been going through the Housebuilder's Bible (which is a nice overview, but very light on details) and checking the RIBA plan of work. I don't suppose anyone's familiar with an existing "So now you've got planning, what next?" kinda guide, are they? I'm revisiting my notes from two years ago about CDM, VAT and other such fun topics, and finding that maybe I should have written them in more detail...

Update on this front: our annexe is described in the application as an optional holiday let, and the LPA have concluded that this means the BNG exemption doesn't apply. The legislation doesn't explicitly handle this case so it's a matter of interpretation, and probably not worth quibbling over.

Quick update - I emailed my local MP (who was sadly no use) and the local councillor. The councillor was more helpful and volunteered to be CC'd on all further communications, and shortly afterwards we got some 'progress' (telling us about issues that they could have told us about months ago).

Can't tell if joking, despite the signature. We waited a year for our last application to get a committee hearing. I've learned patience. Yep. National Landscape (FKA AONB) had some nits to pick but didn't object outright, and we published a rebuttal of their concerns. They've all had well over the mandatory period to give a response. Parish Council, Highways, EA all approve.

Any advice on how to get planning officers to hurry up? Firstly, our planning officer is a lovely lady who is massively over-worked. However she did forget to approach half the consultees for five weeks which caused a big delay. She then suggested a determination deadline extension of a month, which has come and gone. She wanted to check an issue with her line manager, but her line manager was off for a week and then our planning officer was off the next week (which was also the week before her nominated extension deadline). The issue she wanted to check is moot: the red line in our BNG plans didn't match that in the site plan, but we're exempt from the BNG requirements anyway. We've now not heard from her in two weeks, despite several emails and voicemails. The application was validated on 18th June, so 100 days/14 weeks ago at the time of writing. I don't want to aggravate her into doing the easiest thing to get us to go away (declining the application) and I don't especially want to piss people off, but this is getting a bit daft. Appealing to the inspectorate for non-determination means a guaranteed delay of about six months though. I'm thinking of mentioning by email that I'd like the application 'escalated', and if I don't hear back then email the department inbox in an attempt to get the attention of her manager. If that doesn't work, I'll mention by email that I'm thinking of complaining to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, to see if that focuses their attention. I guess the last arrow in the quiver is to threaten to take it to the inspectorate. Any other ideas or suggestions?

I emailed the EA and CC'd the planning office (both the officer who was on annual leave and the department inbox). Neither party seemed to think this is unreasonable, and I'm pleased to say that 12 days later we got the EA's approval of our drainage strategy - one which all the the drainage consultants I spoke to said would be impossible to get approval for. Cheers for your help, all.

A lesson learned. The intention was to make sure it was on record that the surface water sewer that this all eventually leads to once carried animal waste, and that was fine for decades, so they shouldn't complain about any rainwater I'm putting down there. In the full document there's a subsequent section of proposals, so it should have been clear what was current and what is proposed. Ho-hum. Ha, I'm encouraged that that's pretty much exactly what I've done. From the email I'd drafted about a revised drainage plan: "The new version has the word "historic" added to paragraph 5.1 describing the animal waste that once used to be discharged in the western lean-to, and a new paragraph 6.11 that explicitly states that no animal waste is to be discharged on site." Thanks for the thoughts all, I'll email them both and let y'all know how I get on.

Is it 'okay' to contact a statutory consultee directly while an application is being determined? The Environment Agency somewhat hilariously object to the drainage strategy for our barn conversion because it's not clear to them that we won't be discharging animal waste. Despite the fact that it's clearly described as a change of use to residential dwelling, and the point on the plans at which animal waste was historically discharged is now a lounge, labelled as such, featuring a fireplace. (The missus has now asked if we can keep a pony in the lounge.) My assigned planning officer is now on annual leave, three weeks after the first determination deadline, and she'll miss her own nominated extension deadline as a result. If I send her an updated drainage strategy making it absolutely crystal clear to the inobservant that there will be no animal waste, there'll be another week's delay in getting it to the EA. So I could email it directly, but I don't know if that is some sort of breach of protocol. I'm thinking to email it to both of them at once. Their response: Note the use of past tense: Part of the building in question, as drawn in the drainage strategy:

@mjc55 Thanks for pointing that out, I think it might be the answer here. I've emailed the planning officer to point this out, and ask 'can we just disregard it entirely, and save a lot of time and effort on both sides'. I know they're massively over-worked so hopefully this line of thinking will appeal to them. Then all I've got to do is deal with the Environment Agency who are objecting on the grounds that we haven't supplied a drainage strategy - despite the previous application getting approved without one, and despite us having a permit that we were going to mention when we got around to supplying a drainage strategy. To paraphrase Dana White: "every day shit will happen, and I will deal with it" 😆 The obstacle becomes the way, and all that!

Ooh, interesting! The smaller red line is only 0.33ha; the larger red line for the ecology is 0.62ha. Nope, it's a non-designated heritage asset in a National Landscape, so I don't think permitted development rights exist. That said I had previously believed that permitted development rights were invalid in AONBs/NLs by default, and I never found a source for that, so it could just be folklore? Sadly not, t'was done in June. Ooh, that's good to know! Thankfully in our case that's one of the few oversights I've not yet made.

Correct! It might still count as "self-build" owing to it being the creation of a residential dwelling by the to-be occupier. I'm not sure though, and I haven't followed the thing about self-build being exempt from BNG. Anyone know where I should look? Comments from the planning officer:

Apologies for the wildly-varying image sizes. You can kinda match the shapes by the bottom/south boundary. Here's the ecology red line: ...and this is the smaller red line area from the site plan:

See, I say things like this to the missus, and she gives me the "how high did you score on that autism test again?" look 😂 That was my expectation too, so although it's not the answer I'd like, I feel less alone for thinking it!

Does anyone know the implications of updating a site plan to change the red line in a planning proposal currently awaiting determination? It turns out that I instructed our ecologists to use a slightly larger area of our plot to calculate the BNG than the architects used on the site plan. The planners have quite rightly spotted this discrepancy, and so I think I've got three options: Enlarge the red line on the site plan Recalculate the BNG for the reduced red line Register the difference between the two as 'off-site' mitigation #1 sounds like the least effort, but I don't know if that might invalidate all the work done on the determination process thus far - will consultees need to be consulted again? #2 will give unfavourable results and means paying for all the BNG stuff to be done again. I'm not sure of the implications of #3. Any ideas? I seem to recall someone saying on here that BNG requirements are excused for householder developments? This is two buildings (one residential dwelling; the second building is connected via a link and we're already asking for a condition to prevent separate disposal of it), and it's not the house we're living in. Plus the National Landscapes (FKA AONB) people want 20% BNG in the area. Maybe I could try the approach of "yes, there's a discrepancy, but it's not a deal-breaker so let's leave it as-is."

We did a BNG assessment for our project because we wanted to help tip the scales of the "balanced planning decision", and also 'cause we're well into all that eco stuff anyway. The fine folks at Arborweald do all our arb/eco stuff, and they're both good and passionate. As far as I understand, the current calculation system is pretty coarse-grained, and it basically involves calculating how much stuff you have now (hedges, ponds, various types of grassland) and how much you have after, and a number comes out. Hedges are calculated in linear metres, everything else in plan area I think. You can see some of our BNG docs on our planning application if you're curious, but it sounds like you don't need to provide it.