Mania

Thank you all for your guidance. I am not anxious about our permission lapsing and evidencing anymore. So, I spoke to the building inspector at our LA for guidance as to what they would do. He said they don't usually notify on commencement and advised me to check with the Planning Officer. I decided to email him to notify him of commencement and I received a response saying noted and there is no requirement to notify. I am happy to have a time and date stamp against that. The building inspectors site visit report also has purpose of visit "commencement" plastered on it. Now I am comfortable that officials have acknowledged and documented our start.... @saveasteading your advice was sound - thank you.

👍 The wording for condition 1 was "The development hereby permitted shall be begun before the expiration of three years from the date of this permission"

Thank you @saveasteading We have fulfilled each one of the items on the checklist above and were sure to take plenty of photos and videos of the works carried out to keep as evidence. (For anyone's (in the same position in the future benefit for reference)) after full payment settlement our BCO reviewed all of our structural engineer's, architect's plans & made us get an Energy Compliance report etc. and signed off all that as okay to commence prior to their first site visit to validate. That's a good idea to email them all to someone. Our appointed Building Inspector took many photos too - they have offered to send me their notes for the site visit, I expect that they will make reference to commencement and eagerly await those.

Thank you @kandgmitchell Our builder did run the length of pipe from soakaway in a trench right up to the location of the proposed foundations which seems to be in line with yours and Building Inspector's advice. The LA building control team have referred me back to our planning officer who dealt with our case - I can't get through by phone at the moment, when I do hopefully he will give me some sound advice on how to get rid of this headache easily 🤞 I'll ask about discharging the 1st condition and also about the certificate of lawfulness. I like to think that the LA would be accommodating and want to be onside. It wouldn't be good for anyone if we demolished our home and left it for years until we're in a position ready to build. In this current financial climate it's likely to take us at least 2-3 years. This is the Condition: Conditions: 1 The development hereby permitted shall be begun before the expiration of three years from the date of this permission. Reason: To comply with the requirements of Section 91 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (as amended).

Thank you all. @Temp I’ll follow your advice & see where I get to. I’ll post updates here to confirm if I got a “proper” acknowledgment from our LA. You’re right - it is our first condition. I’ll ask the rep to confirm what he needs from us to discharge. We’ve discharged all of our conditions in the document. Apart from Third Party Wall Agreements & I think we’re good to go (when our finances fall into place). Thank you

Hi I hope you can help please. Our planning permission is due to expire early next year, so I have been keen to make sure that our permission doesn't lapse. With agreement and advice from our inspector our builder dug a soak away and trench and laid a length of pipe. The Building Inspector was satisfied with commencement of works and has signed off. I have asked the BI to send me written confirmation of the site visit. Here comes the tricky part (for me anyway, as I desperately need some comfort). I am seeking confirmation from our Local Authority and the representative there keeps acknowledging and referring to the "initial notice" letter from the Building Inspector advising that they will be acting for us and the LPA has also provided me a copy of their acknowledgement back to the inspector in return, as well as advising me, "Once works are complete they will send us a copy of the final certificate". I might call the LPA representative tomorrow as I feel like I am going in circles to get explicit advice re commencement acknowledgement from them via email. Do the LPA not need a formal notification to confirm that work has commenced, it seems strange to me that they don't? Or Is it just something that the Independent Building Inspector keeps a note of and we are covered, should I relax and stand down? I just don't want to face any issues when we properly start demolition and building in a year or so. Many thanks in advance for your advice. PS Probably irrelevant but we do have our Section 80 & 81 in place. We can't afford to build in the current climate and likely to go beyond the expiry date.

Hi Nod I'm not aware of planning in principle. We are in a situation where we have fully planning permission and want to "commence" to prevent our planning application from expiring in less than a year. Our building inspector advised to "lay a length of drain" and suggested "a min of 3m to a connection", following this they will come to inspect and sign off as commenced. Would anyone know if there's a standard depth that this length of drain needs to be or does it depend and vary from one site to another? Thank you. Our builder (won't be doing the main build) is messing about saying its going to rain for two weeks and I have started wondering if we can/ should just get the Kango out.

Hi @JAS-Build

No problem @MikeGrahamT21 Thank you for responding. I hope you feel better soon. I'll do some digging around 😉

thank you @Temp

HI Mike How did you get on? What did you have to do? We are in a similar situation wanting to get commencement signed off / acknowledged by the council.

Hi JAS-Build or anyone else who can advise please. Did you exercise "commencement"? We have discharged all of our conditions, our LA doesn't apply CIL and I also have the demolition notice. With material prices being so high at present and our need to gather more funds to build we are keen to get commencement signed off to keep our planning application active to buy more time. I've been advised, "Technically digging a trench for foundations or starting demolition would qualify as commencement. it is a good idea to put some concrete in (making sure that you will use it in the final house) and you MUST have secured approved of any conditions that have to be satisfied before development commences if this is to be a legitimate start". Do I need to appoint a building inspector to review our construction plans first, is it their job to inform the council of commencement? Our Structural Engineer advised that building inspectors prefer to be engaged nearer to the time of the actual build so that they can work out their timings to visit site etc. but we aren't ready for that yet. Do you have to write to the council prior to the intention to commence or do you write to them after you have "commenced"? Then does the council acknowledge as actioned to trigger the approved plans and extinguish the "3 year from approval decision" expiry date? Thank you.

Hi Matthyde83 When you mention service connections do you include others apart from gas & electricity? And sorry for being a bit thick, does that mean the meters too? Our site has to be cleared for piling so keeping the existing garage for housing would not be an option for us. Would we need to choose where on our drive we want those services to be from where the builders connect? What will they "live" in? Thank you.

Hi Thank you all for your help. After serving our Section 80 notice we received the counter Section 81 notice within a week. To help others I attach a sample of what we submitted:

Hi Matthyde83, Yes, you need to file a section 80, then the local authority will provide a counter notice for you to proceed and if you don’t hear back at 6 weeks you can start. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/55/section/80 I emailed our local authority’s building control team who sent me a basic form. Have you sorted out your party wall agreements (if applicable) before you start your build and checked if CIL is due? Good luck ?. We plan to demolish our bungalow and replace with a 5 bed detached too. Although we are likely to early next year. Exciting times!

Thank you

Good morning! I hope you all had a good Christmas! Please can you help? I am looking to submit a Section 80 - Notice of Demolition to get this part of admin out of the way. I asked the Building Control team what they need in relation to "any drains and sewers to be sealed, disconnected or removed". So I marked them on the site plan as attached: Pink = Drain Green = Underground Drain Blue = Sewage Drain And sent the plan attached for feedback and received the following advice, "We require more information on the drawing showing the drain runs for the existing drains and sewers which are to be sealed, disconnected or removed. The drawing you submitted looks as though it shows just manholes and gullys" Does anybody have any tips or examples on how to present this information? This is a 1930's bungalow and I don't know if there will be any site plans anywhere. We will be able to work it out roughly but I have no clue on how to present this additional information. Do I literally just draw lines of the pipes? I am horrified that my husband has just told me that the manhole in our kitchen by the back door is to the sewage ? Thank fully I have never smelt anything. Thank you. Mania

Hi Oxo Yes it is worth it.... We had our planning application application refused. There was objection from our neighbour, a local residents association and the parish complaining that our design was bulky and overbearing, loss of privacy, loss of light and out of character with the street scene (high % with gables), impact on conservation area as well as loss of bungalow. Admittedly our design was "out there" (our nice neighbour / friend referred to it as "the Miami style house" (he didn't object)). I contemplated changing our design and resubmitting our application with a more traditional to try to make it fit. But our planning appeal consultant advised against this and quite rightly suggested that our plans will still most likely still be refused. Mrs. Bucket would have complained no matter what, so there's no guarantee that your resubmission will be passed. We submitted our appeal and included that we had pre-application advice (from an officer who left (managed to argue this point cross referencing the point in the white paper)) and how the officer did not visit the site (yours could have still viewed from outside regardless of Covid), similar to your situation where you have evidence. We cited that the officer preferred this mass out of the two we presented for review. The report included all the reasons why the property wasn't suitable in its current state - how we want to make it our forever home. We also stated how our architect had accounted for the 45 degree rule in the design and good architectural design encourages new design, in fact in his decision the inspector stated "Paragraph 127 of the Framework sets out that planning decisions should ensure that developments are sympathetic to local character while not preventing or discouraging appropriate innovation or change”. He also stated that the design would have no impact on the conservation area? We referenced statements referring to inclusions in the latest government law of permitted development passed Ist September 2020 (?) and referenced the NPPF re Pre-application engagement and front-loading as well as referencing other relevant paragraphs such as how the design will meet current and future standards re Lifetime homes, if you have children you can explain the tight space and demonstrate by submitting photographic evidence of the rooms, including two beds, crowded etc. And in your case you can reference similar house designs as you plan for in the area. We said we would use obscure windows to the sides. There are many arguments you could use, I could go on and on - I spent hours looking at our LA's paper and cross referencing arguments in the NPPF, government white paper and Permitted Development law to help make sure the appeal was all watertight. You might find this useful to make sure your design adheres: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/830643/190910_Tech_Guide_for_publishing.pdf And to cross reference points in response to the council and objection letters https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/958420/MHCLG-Planning-Consultation.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-design-guide https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn00485/ We asked our neighbours opposite and a few doors away to write letters of support (doesn't have to be those originally consulted (one was)), which they did and helped to highlight that opinions are divided. Mrs. Bucket our immediate neighbour used the same arguments as she did before which obviously were her personal opinion and actually read quite pathetic saying we were building "down the garden" and this time went and wound up our nice immediate neighbour's wife to do the same when he was out. The council's response was very wishy washy referring to the LA plan, which is still at the modifications(?) stage and easy for us to respond to, you also get a chance to respond to representations in any objection / support letters - but at this stage of writing you are not allowed to produce new evidence and only respond to the council's comments but did cross reference the responses to the government's white paper and law. If you do lose the inspector will highlight areas and make recommendations and as I understand it you can still win with say a condition that you should add more greenery etc. In our case it was that we must have obscured windows to the side walls and not use the flat biodiverse roofs as balconies. The council wanted our PD rights taken away should our appeal be granted but the inspectorate couldn't see any reason for it. So glad we appealed because WE WON!!! A local estate agent who came to value said its a shame some people don't and how he has seen some homeowners scale right back or build chalet bungalows instead. Something which we did try to contemplate. After winning were able to modify our design and resubmit for free and get rid of the red bricks which the pre-app officer advised us to incorporate to try and marry the traditional and were able to go back to our original plan of pure white front and slightly angular design. As our architect put it, "free roll of the dice". Go for it, while it can go either way and there's no guarantee that you will win, but there's also nothing to guarantee if you submit a revised design / planning application you will get approval. The more I dug into the policies and laws the more I found them to be in our favour if presented well. Please don't be disheartened. If you don't try you will never know and you could find yourself in the same predicament if you don't. Good luck.

Thank you

Thank you Mike, that is very reassuring.

Hi... Our architect requested considerable payment prior to providing us with our construction drawings which we totally understand and promptly arranged as a matter of course. However, I was disappointed to receive the construction drawings marked with "PRELIMINARY" all over them as I thought our work was done with the architect team. On the email they included a note telling us to send them our structural engineer's drawings to update the construction drawings. Is this normal? I always thought that the SE would prepare a separate report to be submitted to Building Control as part of a pack.... surely the SE will overlay the DWG format plans which I have already relayed to him to prepare his calculations and recommendations of where the beams etc need to be. He will also need to bill us for his work - this seems like duplication to me. Is it common that we need to relay the structural engineer's drawings back to the architect? Is this a method for them to bill us further? I already had to ask them to take out charges for "submission of plans to recommended BC". They weren't happy that we were going to use our own independent engineer instead of one from their firm. Are they trying to pull a fast one? I had to ask them to exclude fees to submit the plans to their recommended BC on the invoice- not something we ever discussed with them or agreed to. I will be grateful for any tips or advice. Thank you ?

Thank you

Thank you for the tips. We managed to get through the process using this further guidance from the planning team rep: "If you wish to make an electronic application you can only do this on the Planning Portal website at this link https://www.planningportal.co.uk/applications Once you start an application, it will ask a series of questions regarding the type of application you wish to make. For the above you will need to selection on Application Type - Existing consents – Approval of Details reserved by Condition, the system should then allow you to upload the documents".

Thank you for taking the time to respond Jilly Good to know its the right place. I'll check again tomorrow. ?

Helloooo...Good evening. Our local authority have confirmed that as a homeowner I can apply to discharge planning conditions. I sent them the completed "Discharge Planning Conditions" form for their review and asked how to submit and I was told that the form is incorrect and "you can make an application on the Planning Portal at www.planningportal.gov.uk where the reports can be uploaded and the fee paid". I have spent the past hour going round in circles on the website and and can't find where to submit. Please can someone help? Our LA is Epping Forest DC. Thank you.