Ferdinand

Yes, but not for each house. On ours we had to comtrinute to a local playground, which is fine if not a killer amount. If a little bit of linguistic or administrative self-abuse keeps the box tickers and the nimbies happy, then perhaps let them have their fun. If they are not allowed to relabel your plans, then they may find something that actually makes you do something. F

Can you build a landscaped backdrop berm against which to shoot errant pheasants safely? That would use up some soil. Not being a shooter I am not sure of the details except that it must be done safely and within your own land or with permission from the landowner. F

How is that different from a private outside amenity area which everyone has always had in their requirements anyway afaik? Do you have to provide a bouncy castle and a sandpit ?? F

You need to check actual policy, at national and local level. The biggest distance is likely to be habitable room window facing habitable room window, and is about privacy and overlooking. It may alter eg if there is a 2m brick wall in between. Or if you offer obscure glazing, or a dog leg angle, or other things you come up with eg a brick wall. This depends on the status of the new Local Plan, as to how much weight it gets. If your Planning App is in before it is in force, then it should be done mainly on saved policies from the existing. But it will help to nod to the new ones. I started my largish planning application to get the permission in before the proposed local plan took us out of the housing allocations. We got it through Ok on appeal after a political refusal, but the Council are so supremely competent that 6 years later the new lot have just entirely restarted the process after kicking out the old lot, who had previously inherited the same exercise from the lot who just got back in albeit they are now independents not Lib Dem’s. If there are problems with it in law or practicality, write up an email with talking points and chapter and verse and give it to your local paper after a phone call. They love that kind of story. Our Local Plan made The front page at least twice that I know of. Ferdinand

I think it should be possible to arrange it geometrically such that Party A cannot park in the turning area head without completely blocking access for Party B to their drive eg if you make A reverse onto the bit outside B’s entrance in order to turn and vice-versa. If you really wanted to you could set it up a little like Tyneside Flats where A owns the bit outside B’s entrance where they reverse to turn, and vice-versa, and B only has a right of way over it. The trick is to make the bit when A turns impossible for B to park on and similarly the other way. One way to do that is to set the gates vpback sufficiently far on a common Y entrance to be too short to park, whilst making the road too narrow for a side-park to leave room to turn. I have one possible scheme but uploads are currently dead. Ferdinand

i think this is always not ideal, but works best if the rules are very clear, and the physical layout is such that breaking them is as diddicult as possible. That is nebulous, but I get things from it like making sure that the turning area is separate from the parking areas, and that there is not room for 1 car to squeeze in to it whilst there still being anything like room for a turnaround. So that violations are obvious. Can you do anything like provide a dual purpose lawn/turn for both properties separately? F

Cheers. So that is just a need to login, then .. or are a certain qty of posts required?

i think you perhaps just need to be logged in, though I was not aware that that was one of the Members Only areas. F

You could do a two-area one using trad gravel with tarmac. This is mine done about 5 years ago, where I replaced the existing traditional suburban front garden lawn and beds with 2-3 car parking, Aimed for 3, in practice a comfortable 2. The existing concrete drive stayed in situ. It was done with proper ground fabric etc, and it is about 50-50sqm of gravel. The edgings are cement, and I think the whole thing was about 3k all in in 2013. As you can see, it is still Pretty much weed free, and te maintenance is 1 raking a year, or perhaps 2. Oh .. car is for sale if anyone wants a 2009 1.4 Corsa auto with 50k. Ferdinand

You could get something like that built out of SIPS for less than that. eg https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Insulated-Garden-Studio-Office-Room-Pod-DIY-Self-Build-Kit-Bespoke-SIPs-Panels-/222302350517 F

This is the provision I was talking about. It appears in EW you have 3 years to sell your previous property to reclaim 2nd home Stamp Duty. https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/everything-you-need-to-know-about-stamp-duty#stamp-duty-on-second-homes Has that changed in Scotland? F

The 3% extra stamp duty does not apply to properties costing under £40k as one threshold, but that is to do with the price of the second property not liability for the second property tax. I think the solicitor is correct. I recall the overlap period being reduced, though I thought it was 18 months not 16. Others may add more. Ferdinand

I thought the principle was that ownership of a shared property was treated the same as if it was a whole smaller property ie normal rules and thresholds apply. Is the 3k the supplementary stamp duty of 3% on second properties? Ferdinand

There are records of around 30 builds in the blog area. Worth a look. I am not sure how many truly "alternative" build methods have been used by members though there may be some. I can't recall hobbit houses, or earth sheltered, or cob houses occurring too often. I think the weight of emphasis here is more on building houses to a good specification, whilst simplifying away some of the more gimmicky or specialist interventions. And I think that you may have more meat for your research in this kind of area ... eg do we really need grey water recycling, GSHP and complicated control systems? That is, straws in the wind for the practical consequences of high spec fabric first. Though there are exceptions - eg @Ed Davies is off grid in an A-frame house. IMO the valuable insights to be gained here are perhaps as much about practical things that can be rolled out more widely, rather than revolutions that will upend all the apple carts. Suspect that we are 5-15 years in advance of the norm, not 25-35. Ferdinand

ie £20-50 ish pa for a 100 sqm floor area, depending on your heating. F

Oh you mean that one not the famous football player, who must be good because he has played for both Forest and County. That sounds like a session of the Ozzie Senate. A good deal cleaner than most comedians these days. PS The crappie/chappie was Apple again.

Is this Kevin Wilson chappie someone of whom we should all have heard?

To convince yourself run some numbers including 10 years of heating bills.

Wait until you tile something, then use the offcuts.

My interest is whether cost overheads .. especially those imposed in advance .. mitigate against developement, and ar a drag on eg small development firms and small plots of land, and whether the balance is right. I also wonder whether there are extraneous reasons as to why the overhead is quite so high for self-build and small developments. We all have war stories or lack of war stories, but I am interested in finding some data. Reading campaign material eg from the CPRE there is a lot of questionable information out there. Ferdinand

Absoluely agree, but an evaluation has to start somewhere, and where a public critique can be made from all sides. It would really want two entire years for all councils in the country, peer reviewed and done to take out sample bias and other factors .. but that is then in pro-research project territory. We all have our viewpoints .. mine is significantly based on observing what seem to be questionable institutional networks of relationships which seem to involve manifest conflicts of interest. Plus anecdotal accounts from long term professionals etc. Ferdinand

Plus all the rest.

I am of the view that there seems to have been an increase in the number of consultant reports required by self-builders (and developers, but that is not the topic here) over the last 20 years. My view is that this is in part down to Councils playing safe because it is more attractive to demand a report anyway when somebody else pays the expense, rather than the scarier prospect of not insisting on one. However, that is anecdotal. My suspicion is that we are in a position where a dynamic exists where some bodies want more reports to grow their businesses, in addition to protect whatever they say they are trying to protect. But I need to begin to get a handle on some evidence. I am trying to frame an FOI request to get data from a typical authority about 2 sample periods (perhaps Sep-Oct 2018, and Sep-Oct 2006), to get a snapshot sample. I think a more-complete request would be too much expenditure to get through, and to be justifiable as a load to place on Council Staff. Question 1: Does anyone have or know of any data on this? Question 2: Where is the definitive list of statutory, and hopefully non-statutory, consultees? Any comments are most welcome. Ferdinand

Consider your post, as it will there for a long time. If it was a separate post, I would consider using a concrete post repair spur, as it comes with bolt holes already included, and the lifetime of a concrete post. eg This is the Wickes version at £18: https://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Fence-Concrete-Repair-Spur---75mm-x-100mm-x-1200mm/p/542503 I usually pay more like £8-10 from a local supplier. Ferdinand

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