Ferdinand

Your solicitor will be able t9 put in this query through the Professional Support side, if they have the appropriate business service from the LR. Might that be a better route? F

I thought it was on Fridays. Oooops. Since a family member has just confessed that she thought it was Saturday, I have part of the morning free to watch it ?. [update : just went to watch it online. “Ad one of ten”. Nooooooooooooooooo... It feels like Homer Simpson and the Electronic Voting Machine ]

They need something big to keep him from getting out too often.

What was the date on your original PP decision notice? 1) Under some circs you get the right to a "Second Go" at little cost. The main thing is iirc you lose a lot of free options after 12 months. This is the place to look, under "Exemptions": https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/574500/When_are_applications_eligible_for_a__free_go_.pdf https://www.gov.uk/guidance/fees-for-planning-applications If your PP decision date is within say the last 10 or 11 months, then look at this NOW (not tomorrow - today), as you could lose a lot of value in fee-avoidance. If you are at 50 or 51 weeks since your Decision Date, then you can do it if you get your skates on. If you are over 12 months then it is a little less urgent. 2) Or you could see if you can go for a thing called a Variation to your existing PP, which may be a Material Variation or a Non-Material Variation, depending on the impact of your proposed change on the evaluation of the development from a Planning Viewpoint (mainly, does it look different, or impact on third parties differently). Simply repairing a wall differently may be arguable to be Building Control matter. Some consultancy may be useful in either case, as there are intricate arguments which could be made. eg A new PP needs to start from where you are now, or conceivably they could argue that development have started, and that therefore you have no CiL Exemption if that applies). (I think I am right here, but others may comment usefully). Take care not to lose any other rights if you are in a rush. "Praise the Lord ... and pass the ammunition." (*) Ferdinand * I love the 'planning' line from the song ... "We stand between the Deep Sea and Perdition" ?

Yes, but they will evaluate that against all the relevant policy etc. I would start by talking to your Local Planning Authority about the site, and asking them what you need to do. Ferdinand

That will need secondary treatment or similar. You are likely to end up with extra expenditure of at least a couple of thousand for that. See Welsh Building Regs. F

Welcome to the pleasure dome. Take your time and get it right so you stay there as long as possible, as by definition we only have one forever home. Ferdinand

PS Do you want this person for a neighbour . Savour that you are in the overall position of gatekeeper not supplicant, here - albeit with attached costs.

Morning @Hecateh. My comment. I think there are strands to this. 1 - Your buyer says he has walked away, because he believes he has been deceived. He will very likely only be convinced that it is a mistake by a communication from the LR (or on their headed paper), or his Solicitor. Your solicitor or you will probably only do that via his solicitor, although a confirmation of an issue by the LR in writing my give him pause direct from you by email. If you want to keep him, ideally you need something in his hand today, or at worst early next week. Your Plan B here is that the selling season starts in full over Easter Weekend, so a chance to start again if you need with an Open House etc, so you have a few days to try and fix it, and then a few days to start again. 2 - Facts. Based on your post, to me this looks like a provable error, as you have: a - A LR document showing the questioned bit of front garden as yours when you bought it. b - An acknowledgement from next door (ie Council) that it is yours, in the (reasonable) request to reopen the right of way. c - Very much plan B, but in any case, even if a did not exist you have fenced and unquestioned use of it for the period for a claim of adverse possession, and can supply Statements of Truth. That latter may not cover the RoW, but that is minor as a concern. 3 - What to do? As you say approach the LR this morning, first thing. I have always found them helpful. Frame the conversation as correcting an inconsistency that seems to have come up and is threatening your house sale by worrying your buyer. You are quite clear that the bit of land is yours because of 2a and 2b, and because when you look on Google Earth it seems that the boundary features / indicators are consistent. (By that I mean eg where the lines on the ground - fence, RoW etc, line up with on the Gospel Hall opposite, which is on the various LR Deeds and still there. Evangelical persistence can be useful sometimes! They use such indicators when maps are ambiguous; by showing it now you may get a quicker answer from the LR). (Make sure that you have to hand on your PC a screenshot from Google earth which shows the alignment of boundary features in favour of your case, already on an email that you can send whilst talking to them. Mention it fairly early. Add in the docs above, and include a piccie of the Council letter asking you to move the footpath if you have it. Be ready to make it 2 emails in case their system chokes on the attachments.) Ask how do you proceed, and how does it get sorted, and will they be able to confirm by letter / email that there is an issue which will be sorted so that your buyer can be reassured, or have you lost the sale? (I think the LR will likely make it official that it is a problem which is being addressed, but that it will take some time (weeks or months) to do so in the records, and may give you or your conveyancer official confirmation that it is in the queue. That should satisfy potential buyers if they have concerns.) 4. Then go from there. IMO your Conveyancer should have spotted this early if they had access to all the docs, and should therefore sort it as a priority, in accordance with whatever the contract says. It may be that the other side just have a teeny-bopping conveyancer who is not confident. I had a hell of a problem when the other side refused to believe that we had the right to access our drive from the road, when we had been using it for 40 years. The issue was that the road had been realigned for the M1 to be built in 196x, and the 4 or 5m of land that were in the wider verge had some difference imposed by the then relevant government department, and it was a sod to find the records. I disagree with others that all conveyancers are not that good - the skillset and knowledge may be narrower than a solicitor, but it can be deeper within a specialist area. eg for many years the boundary site expert on GardenLaw was called Conveyancer. Your hard call may be at what stage to call time on this buyer, since there may already be signs of nitpicking beyond the call of duty wrt electrics. Ferdinand

I read that as chimp. Sorry. ?

Elsewhere I have talked about my project this year to upgrade my two bathrooms. One aim is to have 2 showers that can be run simultaneously. I have a big Combi that is well able to do it heat wise. My current flow measurement at the cold kitchen tap on full is about 9-10l per minute. I may have scope to up the pressure slightly. I am happy to embrace eg shower heads which use less water. There will be one electric and one mixer showers. The plumber has initially recommended a boost pump, rather than the accumulator I was think about. Can anyone comment on pros and cons, and any measurements I need to make to help making the best decision. Thanks Ferdinand

Not really clear whether you want a thread title or search terms. But for a thread title, start with something like “Help with my driveway gate”, or Zoot’s Driveway Gate Project. As for buying one, that agent for example has every size from 3 feet to 12 feet, so you just buy the two you need and get them to identify the extra bits you need. they are about 10% more than mine, but that is not a bad price. To find an agricultural supplier, just look under Agricultural Merchant and go and see or phone up and ask for prices. Or ask a farmer. Make damn sure you use a Postsaver on your wooden posts of you concrete them in, or a way of keeping the wood out of contact with the ground, which will add 50-100% to its life. Or buy guaranteed posts. (I love the Birthday Zoot header photo.) F

Kate La Vie seems to be a medium-high level social media influencer / lifestyle blogger. Very self-made. Her brand choice is excellently done ... has all the accounts in the same name etc. I do not know about her TV skills yet, but I quite like her ethos ... quite an old style blogger (2009) who transitioned, and I like the reasonable transparency of her stance, and quite down to earth. The ‘million followers’ is a bit hype-y. Not sure that a Facebook Like = a follower. http://www.katelavie.com/faqs http://www.katelavie.com/disclaimer Ferdinand

I seem to do ok with just gates ‘countyname’ Or gates on the eBay search. Or look for fencing suppliers, who will also do gates. or .. depending on poshness required ... something like wrought iron gates, which would work out at £600-£1250 depending. F

What are your constraints and budget? Looking at your setting, I would probably suggest a pair of farm pedestrian gates from an agricultural stockist would fit in well. Just been looking into it for a neighbour who is on a budget, and a pair of hunky-chunky (ie the bloke reversing into it will lose the damage war) metal hanging posts, plus a pair of 5ft metal farm gates, comes in at under £200 including VAT for 5 bar gates, or about £250 including VAT for wooden ones from my usual stockist. Because they are likely to have a range of sizes you can probably do your 60:40. The thing that would need to be sorted here is mountings for the wooden gates on the posts, and some form of fastening in the middle. Personally I like a single big one if it is mainly an entrance for cars as I am lazy and do not like opening 2 gates. One solution. F

it is clearly crying out for either an internal or external Helter-Skelter. Not as much as windmills do, but it needs one. ???

In Barcelona it would be attractive to me due to the temperature in summer. Not quite so sure about the same thing in say Scapa Flo or Skegness.

There may be some inspiration for you in one of the houses shortlisted for House of the Year 2018. Made in concrete cylinders cast from corrugated formwork, it is called VEX. https://www.architecture.com/awards-and-competitions-landing-page/awards/riba-regional-awards/riba-london-award-winners/2018/vex https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/riba-house-of-the-year-2018-two-more-homes-added-to-shortlist/10037431.article F

Welcome. That ever so slightly reminds of Ricardo Bofill’s cement factory conversion in Barcelona. That is also made from silos, albeit 30 of them with an area of 500 sqm. https://twistedsifter.com/2011/04/cement-factory-conversion-ricardo-bofill-barcelona/ Ferdinand

Probably not for £5 each. Others may have different suggestions. F

Yes. My view is that sometimes we can feel overwhelmed by an architect, through assuming that they will somehow manage themselves. Things like the adherence to a budget, and where there is flexibility or not, are imo part of the stuff we need to be aware of the outlines of, and communicate our requirements. If we are dealing with somebody who is more of a technician or plans-drawer, then it is more obvious that they are more of a lieutenant or a midshipman. Even if we higher a Captain of the ship, ie architect, we still need to navigate. An architect may well think of their role as to suggest things which are beyond our ideas, which may well be very very good but will stretch the budget, and we need decide how far down those avenues we go. That imo is one of the constraints we need to address and communicate. I am overtime considering the Brief to be more and more important, and deserving of effort. Ferdinand

>We would be looking to start building work in just over a year's time - giving us time to find an architect, get planning permission and approve the plans before we relocate. On architects. As a professional they have a huge amount of knowledge and training, and hinterland. It is like dealing with a master of a guild, rather than a journeyman (eg an Architectural Technlogist). They bring a significant possibility for inspiration and innovation to your conversion (probably good for a barn conversion), and can add a lot of wow factor and fluency to your project. But ... by the same token that means that you have to be on the other end of the seesaw with an awareness of what you want, or your architect can deliver you nothing except THEiR ideas. So you need to develop a sufficient vision yourself to GUIDE the inspiration your architect can supply, so you gat a brilliant version of what YOU want. To pick up on @joe90, be an active enough client such that first you can choose an architect who's "style" matches your intention, and second so that you have the confidence to express the constraints you wish to identify clearly. Including budget. With an architect you need to be able to debate and think at a more abstract level than say with an Architectural Technician. A seesaw needs similar weights on both ends, and that means you need to work at it ... the Architect has 5-7 years of training plus a career, which is a resource that you have to be good enough to guide. F

You are thinking about the fundamental questions in the right areas here. My comemnts: Assuming you are going for a well insulated house. 1 - Take time to think it through *very* carefully, and visit people who are already in that situation. 2 - The heat from solar in winter is very little compared to summer ... perhaps only 10%, so there will be a potential benefit but it will not be huge. 3 - You need to be thinking about significantly large overhangs (think 2m downstairs or perhaps 3m+ if it is at double height (or you could go for 2 layers with a balcony upstairs). The aim is to keep out the high sun in summer, and let in the low sun in winter. BUT as you would guess ... the difficult case that needs care is the sun in spring and autumn, where there is lowish sun with highish heat. Consider how you can incorporate such overhangs in your design and natural usage for your house, and whether you want to use things that are structurally based off the ground, attached to your houise,or separate (eg pergolas), and consider if you need to design anything in such as powered blinds or solar glass (*), Ferdinand * Of course if you keep all the autumn excess heat out with glass itself you are then buggered for the winter benefit :-). The important thing is to take more time to think than you expect to need.

Indeed. It is in the mind as I am having a third of half of an octopus for tea, having had the other two-thirds of the half with a friend the other week. It is all the fault of the octopus sellers of Whitstable, who refuse to deal in portions smaller than a semi-Octopus, which do not work for individual light lunches. Given the musicality of Canterbury Cathedral, they should at least be familiar with demi-semi-quavers, and therefore be willing to sell me a demi-semi-octopus ie one tentacle. plus a slice of mantle. Alas, not. Tasty octopus, though. I was referring to the first unit you display, which is a through-the-wall item ie one 100mm hole, and you think is plug-ugly. The first one I installed back in 2012 put into a backless cupboard carcase with a louvred wooden door and mounted slightly off the wall. and was therefore invisible. That might be less trouble than a cephalopod in your loft. But it would require an external wall, which may be scarce. Ferdinand

@Onoff It seems to be a really complicated way to deal with ventilation for a single bathroom. ? An alternative .. if the problem is an ugly unit with the through the wall one ... is to just put it in a small cupboard with a louvred door, as I did with one of mine. That will save you at least 4 pipes, and a half-octopus in the loft. Or would that not fit in with the design? ? Ferdinand