Alan Ambrose

@DevilDamo can I ask - you’re a planner / ex-planner / planning consultant?

That’s the other thing that’s teeing me off with LPAs atm. They’re ignoring the ***** rules. Mine ignores the 8 weeks or negotiate-the-timing rule. They also ignored the absolute basics in the Procedural Guide for appeals and the inspector let them. When your state institutions themselves lie, I mean ‘mislead’ with their stats and ignore the rules, then everything is falling apart rapidly. A friend who’s an architect and has worked in France tells me that if their equivalent of the LPA don’t meet the specified timing, then the application is automatically allowed.

Yeah, I think this 'we refuse to talk to our customers' thing is just making everything much slower and more resource intensive - for the LPA as well as the applicant. In my case, I've now put in one pre-app (the seller had also put in one), two applications, two appeals, I've just filed my costs with the LPA and I'll submit the original application again on Friday. I'm pretty sure now I'll get to build what I asked for on the pre-app several years ago. If the case officer had read it properly and discusssed it with me for an hour, we could all have saved a couple of years and a lot of resource. This is like doctors refusing to talk to their patients; polititians refusing to talk to their constituents; businesses refusing to talk to their customers (all online businesses?). It's all going to go downhill fast and then someone will discover that a 10 minute chat could avoid work for everyone lasting several years.

The topo people normally do something sensible, but add anything you think might impact planning or building. It's annoying to go 'I wish they had measured xxx while they were there', but you will undoubtably forget something, so don't sweat it. (for planning) + Ridge, eves, position of neighbouring buildings + Location, heights of existing building, driveway, access, gates, paths, outbuildings (for building) + Positions of services, drainage runs, manholes, inspection hatches, invert levels, ditches, culverts, meters, position & height of poles and track of overhead lines + Size, position, spread of trees + Geo features - ponds, fences, boreholes, wells, hedges, ridges etc

Yeah, some time ago I paid extra for a pre-app to include a meeting with the planner to discuss. Well ESC didn't honour the meeting and didn't refund the fee either.

Are their any external blinds which have electrically controllable height and blade angle?

Goodness gracious - some daft planner thinks someone will go to the trouble of applying for PP, building a house and possibly paying 10s of thousands of penalty CIL for selling within 3 years - just to avoid BNG. These guys are operating on another ..!.X..! planet.

Concrete screws or old fashioned wall plugs?

Both my pre-apps were a complete and misleading waste of money - both exactly wrong. Suggest consultant, do your own research on the planning portal and/or full app and option agreement. Bear in mind - unless your site is very straight-forward you may be going round the planning loop more than one time.

Sounds a newish property? Fix it all as above, document everything, then set about reclaiming the money from the builder. If you can find him, that is, you can send him a warning letter up front.

>>> The Cil is very clear Yeah, I think it's a badly written and fragile bit of legislation that can catch the unwary for multiple £10s of thousands if they just get the timing or a single entry on a form wrong. We, as a society, have far too many unethical 'rules' like this - forget to pay your £1 parking charge or enter your reg wrongly - well that'll be a £100 fine, thanks. Earn £10 of the limit as a carer - we'll demand 10 years / £40k of carer's allowance back. I wonder what the S106 advantage is to the LPA over and above the CIL legislation?

Ah, glazed ‘arrow slits’ should look amazing - the opposite of the current ‘as much glass as you can’ movement. All mysterious, castle-like and seductive.

You could perhaps have a contract subject to planning. Or do one or more pre-apps (which remain private) to see whether your LPA will countenance anything at all.

If the question is ‘who’, then I think ‘HETAS engineer’ is the answer. Btw a simple diagram or photo helps these kind of questions a lot.

>>> I do question “no new openings” Me too, the openings in there right now don't look 100% authentic. I think we should concentrate on beautiful and efficient and great to live in buidings for the future. A lot of the old stuff, particularly old ag stuff, probably had 5 minutes spent on 'design'. And we're going to go out of our way to 'preserve' this? Ag buildings were built for storage and/or animals ffs. Wouldn't it be an idea to allow a little more slack for the new usage for humans? A friend has a listed place. Heritage were doing a barney about keeping some stairs - until the owners found someone in the village who had put them in in the '70s.

What a lovely old building. It would be interesting to hear more sometime about the steps involved in obtaining consent from the listings people.

Sounds a fantastic project. Welcome … and can we drool over a picture of it please?

Interesting question though - when does a problem become an SE problem? Some obviously are, some obviously not. It’s the ones in the middle that are the problem.

>>> Can imagine 6mm cement board sheets being quite fragile to handle. They're really quite tough, although you can shatter them. Also heavy. You need proper carbide tools to e.g. cut a 100mm hole for a pipe. I have some bits of board around if you want to experiment.

>>> the LPA cited case law I would be interested to read that - presumably they quoted case references. They cited case law in the rejection of your planning application already? Next step is for them to file their statement of case, and then both parties can submit final comments. Don't hold your breath. FYI my LPA ignored the planning appeal procedural guide ( https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/planning-appeals-procedural-guide/f90d5f21-de2c-43cd-b743-6c81b9a1b70f ) in its statement of case and (a) bought up new issues, (b) didn't summarise the issues in dispute as required. When challenged, the inspector said words to the effect 'what can you do, it's only guidance' and allowed the LPA's new issues and their V-sign to the guide. He did award me costs though. If you detect any LPA dodginess, then file for costs (the principle, not the amount) straight away and keep a record or have some way to know how much time you and others have spent and therefore justification for the costs amount.

That's weird, there are loads of items on the land registry that say 'land 40 paces west of the duck pond' or somesuch. Maybe a new rule. Ask your lawyer what LR suggests for a block of land that doesn't have a street address? Most land doesn't unless it has a dwelling on it (and never will).

>>> My builder assistant thinks that dowelling and glueing will be sufficient. I am minded to use stainless steel threaded bar and nuts/washers. Traditionally a dowel or two only, no glue - say, 20mm. Huge oak buildings used to be built with nothing but woodwork joints and dowels. Taper it a bit so it's a tight fit when it's malleted in. From memory, you can do something clever with a slight oval so it pulls up even tighter as the oak dries out and shrinks (although that looks like dried oak already). Or sure, biggish SS bolts, threaded rod, coach screws etc. A4 SS because oak is quite corrosive. Anything of the size that looks right (M10-M16 say) will be crazy over-specified for the shear load.

>>> don't buy Stuart Turner! We have two ST dual monsoon pumps, one 30 years old, one 20. Both run off and on all day. No problems at all except for a few pressure cylinder replacements over the years. Last time one failed, I replaced them with cheap off-the-shelf vessels and they’re lasting well - last time was 10 years ago. ST had got a bit smart-arsed about the ‘maintenance kit’ costs. So, at least for that product, at that time, they were good.

That’s tough, one of those hardscrabble jobs that needs thinking-on-your-feet skills. Is the angle of the vanes important or just an aesthetic choice?

>>> Can you self-cert/install Yes, I did. Sent drawing beforehand and a short doc with installation photos after. Suspect much more ‘professional’ than a typical HETAS install - maybe they don’t supply anything to BC.