mjc55

I am about to submit this today and something just occurred to me that I hadn't really taken account of! The OPP which was approved is for "Erection of one dwelling & modify existing vehicular access". The only drawing submitted for the OPP was a Location and Site Plan. The slight worry I have is that the Project "description" on the drawing states "Proposed two storey dwelling" whereas as our plan is for single storey! Would it be reasonable for me to conclude that there shouldn't be an issue here? Thanks in advance.

What, if any, detail was in your original OPP? Did your approval of reserved matters go to public consultation?

We bought our land late last year, it has OPP for "Erection of one dwelling & modify existing vehicular access". There were no house plans submitted for this application, just a location & site plan (which was the land only - not even a footprint for the proposed dwelling). The site was one of four identified for development in the village, two had been completed, one just had footings in and ours was the only one that had gone for OPP. For background, since 2012 I worked as an Architectural Technologist submitting plan for small scale extensions etc. along with subsequent BR applications. I haven't ever worked on a new build and so although comfortable with the planning process this is a little outside my experience. The approval of the OPP contained a few conditions, the main one of which states that "no part of the development shall commence until details of all reserved matters (access, appearance, landscaping, layout and scale etc. etc. So I designed house etc. and somewhat went into autopilot mode to submit a planning application. It was only when I was reviewing everything that I put my brain in gear and realised that all we were doing was applying for "Approval of reserved matters" not applying for PP. At this point I corrected the application type on the Planning Portal and tried to understand the process. So, given that the original OPP was very, very simple - no house design at all - I am uncertain as to how the local planning authority will treat the application. Does it still go to neighbour consultation? I would have thought not but am willing to be corrected. We are planning for single storey, flat (green) roof, as sustainable design and build as possible without (probably) going for passive house certification. So it ticks all the boxes on that side of the equation. The village itself has little in the way of common housing vernacular having grown in a fairly haphazard way over the last 50 years or so. The properties on either side have no real architectural merit. On one side is a 60's bungalow, on the other is a rather ugly two storey residence (now owned by Salisbury Diocese). So our proposed build will not fit with either but hopefully complement the overall look and feel of the village. Any pointers from anyone who has been through this rather unique (I think?) scenario are welcome as well as anyone else who has thoughts on the subject. Thanks in advance.

I have some experience in this arena, for about 10 years or so I worked drawing plans for extensions etc in the Wiltshire council area. I am retired now, the pandemic basically put an end to my work in that arena. Therefore my experiences could be out of date a tad. I might add, however, that I did do a couple of planning jobs late last year into this as a favour to an acquaintance back in Wiltshire. Both, I thought, would have issues getting through the planning process but both went through relatively easily. So my take on the original post! Scale bars and pdf - I understand completely the LA view, why is it even an issue to the OP? OS based location map instead of Eastings and Northings - again seems perfectly fine to me. There is usually/always guidance as to what is expected in a planning application, was this not the case for the OP? It strikes me that the other issues are fairly minor, and anyone who does this for a living would not really baulk at the response from the LA. Having said all that, there were certain members of the planning team that I always prayed that I wouldn't get for one of my jobs. I knew that if they were the officer assigned to the job it would not be that straightforward. I had one job that was accepted and rejected four times in one week. I put that down to being overworked as she was a fairly senior planning officer. Didn't make it any easier to sort out but I sort of understood. At the end of the day, it isn't a job that I would hanker after tbh, but there you go, someone has to do it.

This did occur to me! What doesn't make sense is that in the times of the year when the Sun is strong enough to be an issue, it will not sink below the overhang until much later when it is losing it's strength. In the winter months surely solar gain is as much of an advantage and would outweigh any gain! I need to look into this further, there must be ways of mitigating, how else would some of the "grand designs" that exist nowadays ever get through planning and Building regs?

Just looking at Part O for our build. We are planning large areas of glazing for our West elevation, certainly more than Part O would allow I think. However we are also planning a large overhang (around 2.5 m.) on this elevation. My current thinking is that this should mitigate any overheating issues? Does this make sense?

I know its a long time ago, but i couldn't resist! It's NOGGING not NOGGIN 😛

Your cynicism know no bounds ST.

Thanks for that, will text you shortly.

Hi TBC Can't see a private message option on here so hope you don't mind me doing this. We are up North for a few days at my Mum's (Poulton-Le-Fylde) how would you feel about us coming over to you for a chat about Ecobrix? I f you didn't want to I would completely understand. Cheers Martin

Have to say that trying to combine PD and PP sounds a bit bizarre to be honest! Also don't quite understand what your architect was trying to do, surely they understand that you can't apply for PD on an approved application or am I missing something here?

I just remembered that she also said that the driveway could not be granular and had to be of "compact" nature. Again this was something that I hadn't heard of before. Again, I may have misunderstood what she was saying and she meant that just where our driveway came onto the plot and not the whole parking area!

I will be doing both design and (most of) the construction. Design - I would agree that 10+ years of design experience (backed up with degree level AT qualification) should suffice. Construction - I have plenty of experience in construction. Not just in working on houses we have lived over 40 years but also in completely refurbishing and extending two properties (and I did most of the work on both these properties - including complete rewires). I have skim read the Part 2A of building regs that she forwarded to me and as @kandgmitchell stated in their post, I think that I might well look at private BC inspection for our build. I do not like to do this, I always pushed for LABC on all my jobs as a design professional (my wife worked in our LA for getting on 20 years) but if she is going to be difficult, that is something i could do without.

Local council building control

Well, that was interesting! To start with, I worked as an Architectural Technologist for about 10 years before I retired, put in quite a few BR applications with local council BR dept for (mostly) small scale extensions etc. I never had any involvement with new build. We have purchased land and will be putting in for PP in the next few weeks once a boundary issue has been sorted out. So yesterday I thought I would touch base with BR person who is responsible for the area where we are building, have a chat and specifically talk about ground conditions. It was a very "interesting" discussion, I could hardly get a word in and although it was really useful to have a chat I was left a little bewildered. Specifically, she talked a lot about who had what responsibilities with regard to design of build and especially liability insurance. She seemed to be intimating that I could not be both designer and builder and would have to get someone, an architect, with liability insurance (which have to be kept in perpetuity) to be responsible for design! She said that new regs had come in last October meaning that I could not (basically) design and build! Now, I am quite prepared to admit that I could have completely misunderstood what she was saying. She has sent me BR Part 2A, "Dutyholders and competence" document to read, which she says outlines what needs to happen (she did say that it was a pretty difficult document to read and comprehend) and I will read this next week. But I would welcome thoughts of others regarding what we are planning to do. So, basically, we have purchased land, I have drawn plans which will be submitted shortly. I will then draw up BR plans and submit when PP is obtained. Finally (!) we will do as much of the building work as we can. She did say that a lot of this was due to Grenfell and the subsequent fallout of rights and responsibilities that have come from that terrible fire. She also mentioned build insurance and the responsibilities that that brings and that a lot of Architects are trying to get out of "insurance" liabilities as well. Comments and thoughts welcomed, have I misunderstood what she said, have things changed so much in the last few months such that we cannot do what we expected or has she misunderstood what we are planning to do and so misinformed me with respect to the the responsibilities of various parties? Thanks Martin

So what was the roof makeup before the green roof got installed?

That's what I am trying to understand! Have to say that I am finding that price quite high for what seems like a reasonably simple solution! Given that turf costs a lot, lot less (I know it's not exactly the same thing) I don't quite see why green roof solution costs upwards of ten times the price?

Looking at costs for installing a green roof on our new build and I have been quite surprised at the costs being mentioned on the (many) suppliers websites. £100 per sq. m. seems to be average and given that we are planning on having around 250 sq. m. of roof or so (large overhang at rear - about 2.5 metres or so) then we are looking at around £25k or so to do this. Would be interested in hearing how others have gone on taking this approach, whether employing someone to install or self-install (our preference at this stage). I know that there are some on here that don't seem to think that a green roof is a great idea, and I am not averse to having that discussion, but the main thrust of this post is to try and get a feel for the "real" costs of a green roof. Thanks in advance.

In 20 odd years living there we didn't find it draughty at all. Inefficient, need to understand how you quantify that I guess. The house had been completely gutted and timber DG windows installed when we bought it in 99. Did have a mechanical fan in our en-suite, stopped working years ago and didn't bother fixing it.

Looks fab Mr ButterCup 😁

I guess (but am prepared to be contradicted) that opening a window would work! Something we did in our previous house for 20 odd years without ever having condensation or mould problems in our en-suite or bathroom.

You do seem to be very similar in ideas to the way we work Mr ButterCup, noticed this in other threads that we have partaken in! I suppose though that having it installed but not using it to it's fullest capabilities doesn't have many downsides other than cost? Our plan is to have large opening windows and I would fully expect these to be open for as much time as possible. We are planning on pretty big overhangs over the rear elevation so even in rainy weather there would be the opportunity to sit on our "Veranda".

Resurrecting an old thread here but it does focus on something we have been thinking about. We have always (40+ years) slept with the window open at night (apart from the odd occasion when the rain was horizontal!) and embarking on our build leads me to question how this will work with MVHR? We stayed in "passive" house last weekend house-sitting for our Son's friends. I have to admit to waking up and really missing the "fresh air" from an open window. It did feel a bit stuffy. We are still at the planning stage and although we want our build to be passive, we will not be going for any certification for it. I know when we went to the passive house to sort out staying a few weeks ago the owner was very keen that the door was not open for too long wen we came in and did say that he did spend some time looking at the weather for the next day so he can anticipate changes in temperature and react accordingly with their system (combined ASHP and MVHR). They don't have any form of UFH and they have large windows to the East of the property which take advantage of natural heating from that direction in the earlier parts of the day, I do understand, to a degree, the arguments that passive house proponents put forward re the advantages, not least the running costs nut do have problems about how we live in that sort of environment.

Well done, will have a look at further videos. I do think that you are slightly confusing things as regards the type of BR approval you have. As Temp says above this is nothing to do with planning permission it is simply that with a building notice plans (not Planning Permission) are not required the BCO will visit at key points in the build process to check things out. Full plans BR approval is as it says on the tin, plans are required, which are signed off by BC before any construction starts.

When I was working as an Architectural Technologist I would never use files produced by others to produce drawings. They were useful to provide input for a measured survey but I would not trust that they were accurate.