Omnibuswoman

what a great idea!

Thanks Dave. I will pop an email over to my friendly planning officer now! Does notifying building control have any bearing on the planning consent deadline at all? I’ve had conflicting advice about that (from planning and building control depts). M

We have been increasingly anxious about the approaching deadline for the existing planning consent to expire - mid March 2021 - but today, at last, Dan our builder has made a start on the foundations for our workshop/garage/temporary site office and storage space. A large amount of hardcore arrived, the fencing around the protected oak trees was erected, and a digger and dumper arrived. Dan suggested making a start by scraping the mud off the driveway which was turning into a quagmire - an excellent idea. The hardcore is in place ready for levelling, and on Friday the concrete foundation slab will be cast. Plans are afoot for disposing of all of the topsoil that we had scraped off back in October. This is one of our planning conditions: to remove soil imbibed with arsenic compounds and replace with 'clean' topsoil. We have engaged a fantastic remediation company, Remediation UK, to do this. They sent us two brilliant guys to do the scraping, and piling it all up in an enormous 60 ton heap. Hopefully next week (council permit processing permitting) they will be back with an enormous skip to load up and take it all away to their disposal site down beyond Truro. Of course, I am 250 miles away, locked down at home, and am only able to supervise via phone calls with Dan, and his photos (attached). But one thing I was able to do today was to meet with a company specialising in passive house engineering (Greengauge) to start talking about the PHPP spreadsheet and whether or not our window plans might cause overheating. We chose this company because they have made some really radical commitments as an organisation to only work on enerphit and passive house projects, and they are committed to climate crisis action. So far so good - second meeting in two weeks to review the results of their calculations... I'm now wondering when the right time is to dig a utilities trench. Anybody have any advice about that...?

All progress is some progress! We are in a very similar situation with living in the south east and building in East Cornwall - we haven't been there since October when we had the topsoil scraped off (one of the planning conditions as the area has raised levels of arsenic in the ground). We can't wait for lockdown to lift so that we can get down and start some work.

I'm looking at a Land Rover defender 110 on bidspotter, and wondering whether other people have bought things through bidspotter and if so what your experiences have been? I've found very little by way of reviews online, and am concerned about spending money on something I can't go and view. Thanks! https://www.bidspotter.co.uk/en-gb/auction-catalogues/assetauctions/catalogue-id-midlan10896/lot-4876e8a3-3c9d-421e-a56a-acaf00ab5a2c

This is the Christmas present my husband lovingly made for me, as a permanent reminder of my favourite ever comedy sketch. He taught himself embroidery just so that he could make this!!

I'll just leave this here....

thanks. I’ve had a quick look at the rules and I will need to put in a preliminary application by March 2021, but have until March 2022 to get it installed, which is great!

I can’t find reference to this date online, and had thought it was open until 2022. Can you point me to your source please?

I’ve previously doubled up on underlay, using two layers for an extra springy feel underfoot. Your fitter might be able to do this for you.

It's fair to say I'm feeling pretty chuffed about this, and Mr HWMBO is too! 😆

Original customer breakdown of costs.pdf Original plan of proposed new supply.pdf

I found out that WPD should be funding infrastructure upgrades itself, although there is some contention about that as ultimately the cost of upgrading the entire network to allow for future needs in a low carbon economy is well beyond the means of these companies, even though they make significant profits. Clearly this was a case of the company trying to get this past me without me realising that the cost should fall to them and not to me. I wonder how many other customers have been similarly fleeced. Attached are the previous and current plans and cost breakdowns.

This is the email I wrote WPD: Dear [name of WPD staff member], I have been doing a bit of research, and it seems to me that what I am being asked to fund is a local infrastructure upgrade, as well as my own connection. Obviously, as the country moves towards more heat pumps and electric vehicles, the existing infrastructure of 95mm 3c cable, and two 50mm ABC cables just won’t be sufficient for Cemetery Road properties, and it is a matter for WPD’s capital infrastructure budget, rather than asking individual customers to fund that. I’m aware of the policy principles at play, as follows: 4.2. The minimum scheme is the solution designed solely to provide the capacity needed for the new connection at the lowest overall capital cost. A DNO may design an enhanced scheme,2 but the cost to the customer will not exceed that of the minimum scheme. The customer can also request work in excess of the minimum scheme where it thinks this would be more beneficial. For example, it may decide that a more expensive route to the existing network will receive planning permission more easily and is therefore worth paying for. The customer will need to pay the full cost of this additional work, including the cost of operating and maintaining these additional assets over their lifetime I have also had sight of a recent memorandum from WPD stating: SD5G/5 (Part 1) 29.10.2020 Design Standards: Low Voltage Relating to the Connection of Low Carbon Technology (Electric Vehicle Charge Points and Heat Pumps) with a Capacity < 32A per phase This document details the approach for managing Electric Vehicle (EV) Charge Point and/or Heat Pump (HP) installation notifications and applications for individual or multiple equipment (installed beyond the same point of supply) rated up to 32A per phase onto Western Power Distribution’s (WPD’s) distribution network (low and high voltage). Main Changes The charging methodology for cutout replacement and service cable overlays has been changed. When a service cable is being overlaid due to a low capacity, the cable shall be overlaid with a three phase cable. Impact of Changes Western Power Distribution (WPD) will provide free of charge service upgrade costs for domestic installations (profile 1 or 2) where each item of low carbon technology has a rating < 32A. Taking account of the above, I would welcome hearing from you alternative solutions, such as running a cable directly to my property from the Tx at Drakewalls Mine, for instance. This would remove the necessity to run the cable all the way to the pole on Cemetery Road, dig up the road, install new junctions etc. Kind regards Morgan

Nope. The new proposed works are identical to the previous proposed works, but they are paying for it themselves and only charging me for the works involved in the connection, rather than the local upgrade. I made the argument that they were going to have to upgrade the local area in any event as with petrol and diesel cars being phased out, most properties would require a car charging point to be installed eventually, ditto gas boilers to heat pumps, and therefore they upgrade in supply ought to be a capital cost for WPD, not a personal charge to me. Although no mention was made of that argument in the revised quote, this is exactly that outcome.