Omnibuswoman

I prefer the first one too, although I'm hard pressed to express precisely why! Very generous room dimensions on both, but perhaps more generous than needed on the second design.

Oh crikey! I've been expecting to begin in the spring and finish by early autumn. Sounds as though I need to have a word with myself!!! ]

That’s amazing @recoveringbuilder Well done! I’m very good at complaining, so maybe that should be option 1, along with a request for a technical meeting to discuss what our AHSP is going to be as per @ProDave

Wow! How come they only charged you a fraction of the original quote? What was it they were asking you for in the first place that they decided wasn't needed? I'm pretty confident that the neighbour will get PP through this time. However it's been delayed since July when the decision should have been made, without any stated reason. The main hiccup for him is that there is a draft Neighbourhood Development Plan going through the statutory process which labels his field as a rural gap between two adjacent villages. If that gets through a referendum (next May) then his field may be excluded from development, or at the very least he would face a significant challenge to getting PP for 5 houses. His field is the last bit of green space before the next village starts, so there's a fairly strong basis for the gap to exist there. I think the planners might be wrestling with the possibility that granting consent now would scupper the NDP's allocated rural gap before it is voted on, which would render the plan pointless in that small regard.

? You're right, that's probably not the strongest argument I could make!! I've just been doing some reading around the issue about ASHPs and flickering lights. @joe90 is right that standard AHSPs conform with the standard IEC 61000-3-2 which sets out the amount of electromagnetic interference from equipment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_61000-3-2. I found a spreadsheet that sets this out and a list of heat pumps and their specifications on a website that the WPD website points to in connection with installing electric car chargers and heat pumps. My reading of these things is limited by lack of knowledge - I guess this is more @Jeremy Harris territory (and likely others who I'm not yet familiar with). I will approach WPD to ask if I can have a conversation with a technical person. I'm not sure if the chap I spoke to was an engineer or technical. He did seem to be able to explain things without hesitation, but that doesn't automatically tell me that he is giving me the whole picture, or that he understands the underlying issues. His answer to several of my questions was "I put the numbers into our ....... (can't think of the word he used, maybe spreadsheet or calculation formula) and this is what it tells me". That's not a terribly technically accomplished response! It doesn't feel, intuitively, that what WPD are proposing is either absolutely necessary, or indeed the most cost effective solution for me. Of course, there's no incentive for them to be cost effective as I have very little choice about who I can get to do this work. No market forces at play here really. It's clearly in their business interests to have me pay to upgrade the local supply, which I'm not willing to do unless it really is the only option. I also can't see how if the cable is three core, two cores go to my neighbours from that cable prior to it arriving at the pole. That would leave one core supplying the pole. If you look very carefully at the plan, the cable on the pole heading up and down the street is two core (50mm2 2C). So where does that come from? Surely not from my 95mm2 3 core cable? If that could be explained, I would be more likely to accept that in order to provide my supply, I need to pay to upgrade the whole thing. Does anybody on this website have that sort of detailed understanding of the electricity supply network? low-carbon-technologies-heat-pump-split-system-database-form.xlsx ENA Heat Pump Database Draft rev17.xlsx

thanks @ProDave and @Reiver. I have two things to work out: 1) Is there any mechanism/entitlement to dispute by which to engage with WPD about their proposal, including their insistence on supplying a guaranteed 15kw rather than 12kw, and; 2) I need to understand how many houses feed off the current three core 95mm2 cable in order to ask that my house is supplied from this cable. The way the chap from WPD explained it (and I paid very close attention to this) is that the current 95mm2 cable supplies the whole street, via the pole opposite our driveway, and that there is insufficient additional supply capacity for my house, hence requiring the upgrade for the whole street (at largely my expense). That is why the upgraded cable runs all the way down to the pole, and also to my plot. If that is not the case, then I have grounds to challenge the proposal that I upgrade that cable. @ProDave as far as I can tell, the cable currently runs from a location about 100 metres to the north of our plot (labelled Drakewalls Mine on the plan above), and turns east part way along that route to run down our driveway and to the road. I've attached a zoomed in plan below showing that junction where the blue cable turns easy and a cable marked in red turns west. In theory (and I have no idea whether this is actually possible), if it is a 3 core cable with one spare core, they could take our supply from the point where the cable turns that corner (just about 30 metres north of our plot) and run it straight down to us - pending wayleave from our friendly neighbour. That would reduce the quote from £14k down to the cost of about 30 metres of trench/cabling plus the new metre box outside our workshop. Finger in the air, maybe £2-3k. I would be very happy with that. How do I find out whether there is capacity in this cable for that? And if there isn't, whether there is capacity in the cable that heads west from the point around 30m north of us.

Thanks all, some really interesting comments. Yes, @recoveringbuilder the chap next door, or rather his developer, are desperate to build those houses. They have submitted three planning applications over 3 years, and it looks as though this time they have overcome all of the previous concerns the planning dept cited to decline the other applications. I think the developer has invested quite a lot up front and wants his returns! I agree that we are basically being charged to upgrade the network. The chap from WPD said that the 70% charge (to us) for the work represents our ‘share’ of the new capacity, with the other 30% being how many new properties they could attach to the upgraded connection in future. I struggle with the maths of that... I also agree with @joe90 that he hadn’t a clue about AHSPs. I suspect he used this in his calculations and that is how come they think they need to upgrade the cabling. I will see if there is a way of getting a second opinion....

Is this represented by the turquoise lines leading off from this cable along our driveway? It certainly looks as though it is feeding two houses, not three...

I explained a few times about our low energy house, but the chap seemed to think that our use would be higher than usual, especially as we are planning to heat the house and hot water with an AHSP. I explained several times that this is a low energy system as it’s a passive house, but he said that AHSPs “make other people’s lights flicker” as they are such heavy users of power. I find that difficult to compute in the context of this being a good option for a super insulated house. I wonder if I should try to speak to someone else...

Thanks ProDave. The chap from WPD told me that the current 95 cable is serving a pole opposite our driveway which provides the whole street. Maybe he wasn’t quite right about that... The new development will be in the field to the north of us, where the replacement cable is to be run through. It may well be a better option for us to wait and see if he gets planning consent, and then to come to an agreement to approach WPD to supply his five and our house, and we pay 1/6th of that cost instead.

Sorry, 300 mm2 (whatever that is??)

UPDATE: I had a call from the WPD chap today and have established that we are required to 70% fund a new 300mm cable to be installed from the main supply down to the pole opposite the end of our driveway. He said that the current 95mm cable will not accommodate our supply in addition to the other houses in the street, and in order to stop everyone else's lights going out, it must be replaced. Hence the large bill. No account is taken of the fact that we are building a low energy house (a passive house) and plan to have the smallest use of energy possible. He said that they are required to supply us with a 15kw supply irrespective of our potential use. I'm now googling 'living off grid'.....?

Provided his planning consent comes through, that sounds like an excellent plan. We weren’t terribly keen on the idea of the 5 houses next door, but still, every cloud...

I’ve just had the quote through from WPD for connecting us to the network- over £14k. That was not what I was expecting. Looks like they want to do some upgrading at largely (70%) our expense. I don’t really understand what they are proposing or why. Can anybody help decode this for me please? The chap next door (north of us) is waiting for planning consent on his land for 5 houses. We might be sensible to wait for him to foot the cost of upgrading local cabling before we get connected....

Yes, this happened with HMRC. I made an error on the SDLT1 form by not writing in an address for the land (although the instruction clearly said that if the land had no address, instead I should submit a plan, which I did). It was rejected because Q28 is a mandatory question, and not completing the box is an automatic fail. We've now been fined £100 for not submitting our land tax payment on time, because they rejected the form and the payment. Suffice it to say I have appealed the fine based on their own guidance for completing the form, which offers the option not to complete that particular question...

excellent, thanks Ferdinand! I will give them a call

Does anybody know if there is a timescale set out in law for land purchase to be registered with HM Land Registry? I've tried reading the Land Registration Act 2002 but I can't see anywhere that it sets a timescale (unlike the payment of Stamp Duty Land Tax which is 30 days from the date of completion). Thanks M

@bitpipe - We have 10 35mm x 836mm x1980mm internal doors to hang. The quote/QS from our builder is £100 per door to fit/hang. Does this seem like a reasonable cost? As you mentioned, there is quite a bit of work involved, but the quote took me rather by surprise!

Thanks! That’s pretty clear - I will need to get some work started this side of March next year to hold the permission. I shall be watching @BotusBuild to see what amounts to starting work in the eyes of Cornwall Council!

Can I ask about the extra six months as I haven’t heard about that (Cornwall is my planning authority too). Our PP expires in March 2021. Do I get an extra six months to begin work?

Yes, we will need to take the rubbish bins down to the end of the driveway for collection, and we will put a post box of some kind down near the end of the driveway so that the postman doesn't need to walk all the way up the drive. I can foresee my steps count increasing massively with all of those trips up and down the driveway! Deliveries are going to have to be trollied up the driveway. I actually bought a trolley for that very purpose which you can see Darren pulling in one of the photos. The plot allows for cars to turn around (3 point turn) but nothing larger than that. We didn't even once think about the accessibility of the plot to anything larger than a car when we put the offer in. It's only been since researching the land clearance that the restrictions have really dawned on us (novice error).

Spot on! Yes, we will have to have a sprinkler system installed which will be a few K. We are engaging a freelance building control person to advise us on meeting fire regs as part of our design process, but we already know that sprinkler will be mandated.

Thanks, that’s helpful advice Ferdinand.

???

Unfortunately not at the moment - the driveway comes up between two properties and is fenced on one side, and bound by the wall of our neighbour's house on the other. Her guttering restricts width at about 7-8ft off the ground. However, the neighbour to the north has applied to build on his plot, and if he wins consent that will open up significant access that we may well be able to make use of. He will demolish half of his house to create a new roadway from the road to the back of his plot. If he gets consent, then we could have a concrete truck come up on his side of the boundary, and would be within a few metres of the build. Otherwise, it is going to be the length of the driveway as there's no way a concrete lorry would come up. The soil removal is also going to be tricky unless we can access via the neighbour's plot (provided he gets planning consent). It involves dumping the contaminated topsoil on the driveway near our neighbour's house and from there scooping it into a lorry, x15. A massive pain in the butt. We asked the owner of the field to the west of us if we could access that way, but she declined. Massive disappointment. We plan to move the entrance gate to a slightly wider part of the driveway as the gatepost currently narrows one of the narrowest parts of the driveway. The attached plan shows the pinch points, and the neighbours plot to the north. Drawing 02 PROPOSED SITE PLAN copy.pdf