Ferdinand

The answer to that has to be because as a country we have decided it is the desirable thing to do, and we want low energy usage in our economy but people to live in pleasant, warm, desirable houses, and so we adjust the balance of desirables. And that we cannot guarantee cheap energy for the next 100 years continuously. You could apply the same argument to the last 4 lots of Building Regs improvements and we would still all be thinking about whether it was worth putting in 50mm of rockwool in our lofts. In the comparison you cite I hope that X House would be significantly more valuable than Y house. I would like to see some extra Stamp Duty and Council Tax on Y House, and perhaps a small surcharge on any mortgage. I don't believe in big governmet, but would not have a problem with this. Most people do not have a problem with Building Regs and Safety Calculations. Ferdinand

I would slightly differ from Jeremy in that I would fill a stud wall with rockwool if not able to isolate the faces. I did that with a couple of treatment rooms in the gym I have been talking about, and it seems OK. It does however depend on the nature of the noise as we all know. We needed to isolate from gym music and talking. If you have the guys, then perhaps go with the blockwork. Can you choose different types of block for different types of noise? I suspect that nothing will isolate you from the ground-propagated noise, short of a modest earthquake-style solution. For the gym the best solution to keep the floor below isolated from dropping heavy weights was concrete platforms mounted on tuned dampers, which was almost a recording studio style isolation. Ferdinands

Ah yes. But I might be laundering money for the Taddington Liberation Front. Dodgy people in Taddington; they put their traditional wells on top of the nearest hill. Who does that? I don't have a problem with them checking, provided it is necessary and works. I did have *huge* problems with security theatre, such as the half million 'terrorists' (ie members of the public) who were randomly searched by the Met per year a decade ago in London. And they never caught anyone afaik. I had a straightfaced policeman tell me that self + girlf were terrorist suspects when we spent 15 seconds looking at a map on the wall of St Pancras station, and proceeded to do a personal search. Ferdinand

On the same bungalow I have a rather creative pitch from the solicitor for £22 for Chancel Repair Insurance (since it is unregistered). Fortunately there are at least 50 identical bungalows on the one small 1970s development, so any possible liability will be shared many ways. And the church is very well maintained (they even built their own Baptistry in the 1990s). So no chance there methinks.

What is the best answer to Estate Agent and Solicitors' "where did the money come from" questions? I mistakenly said "a previous sale", which means i now have to go on a Certificate Hunt for the relevant letter amongst my filing. Bah. Could just as easily have said "savings", since the money has been there for some time. Breeding iriot Ferdinand. Any good suggestions for wording? Ferdinand

Ye-es. Sort of. But it has to be marginal changes that can be achieved rather than revolutions. Various climate-change wotsits and energy intervention gewgaws have destroyed our aluminium industry. 3 billion turnover nearly gone at a time when our vehicle industry has expanded significantly. There may be some disagreement on this one, and the industry was something of a "Linwood", but green measures were an important cause. Political interventions are *crude*, and *big* *huge* interventions are trumpeted as beneficial, while really that is a jump from one position of overegged ignorance to another, so that politicians can placate their base and demonstrate the huge swinging size of their political penises. Perhaps political party members need to stop being impressed by penis size, for one thing. Higher energy prices will never be accepted for themselves. When Ken Clarke put VAT on fuel to get money in the early 1990s after Norman Lamont who made the original proposal was defeneestrated from his bathroom window for singing while the pound burned, it only lasted until 1997 until Gordon Brown reduced the rate. Lab 1997 Manifesto: That will always happen. Ramp up prices too much; poor people can't afford it; political pressure will turn the clock back or introduce a measure to mitigate which puts costs on the other side and undermines the aim. So increasing prices alone is too crude. People who are 'victims' are enough so that no such measure will work. (One counterfactual is that that "90bn subsidy to business every year. Oooer Missus!" report from the Political Economists at Sheffield University two years (?) ago alleged that the low rate of VAT was a subsidy for business.) The same thing happens with huge subsidies. When we had 44p/kWh solar subsidies we ended up with solar subsidy-farmers just as we did with food subsidy-farmers under the C.A.P. Then when the subsidy was reduced because solar power was cheaper, the Greens and some mainstream politicians (eg Lisa Nandy) went to market squealing about "attacks on environmental measures", when in reality it meant a reduced amount of subsidy per unit meant that more green measures could be subsidised with the same money. Problems there: the originators didn't think it though, and Greens are a fringe enough party that they don't understand the power / efficiency of markets to deliver benefit. See also the Arlene Foster fandango - a new dance involving holding a cover over your backside while singing La La La Boom Di-Eh. It has to be set up to deliver a wide benefit via relatively small change imo. I agree with a lot of that. It is the old thing about people buying or renting property on bathrooms and kitchens, not energy bills, and the latter therefore not being visible in the market. A lot are not upgraded, but it will make a real long-term difference. Minimum EPC is a good move. I am not sure about C by 2030 though ... that may force poor properties to pool in the Owner Occupied sector as many may not be upgraded economically. There is also an issue with EPCs being redefined every few years .. criminal offences based on movable goalposts is questionable. Next we need minimum EPCs for Owner Occupied properties too. Ferdinand

Cheers. After all, you are still quite a distance from him - even if he gets to build it. Have a Fog Cutter. Council decisions are sometimes like rain. At present we have a corker going on, where the Council accepted a so-called Parking Report riddled with fabrications, and then failed to challenge it in an Appeal and lost the Appeal. Then a new PP intensified the development, and so they are now getting 8 flats that are only about 440sqft each on a site with 3 parking spaces.

@recoveringacademic I think that decision to allow a late Appeal may have been overturnable, but it would have needed well-argued solicitors' letters within days or weeks last November, and perhaps an MP sticking an oar in. But PIs are sensible usually. I would not like to call the outcome of this, since the Council admit in their submission that they did not fully understand Local and National policy when approving "the application immediately adjacent to the North" (Let the Reader Understand) ! F

Yep. Newts are a strange exception amongst protected species - you can move them yourselves iirc from last time I read the Act. (not legal advice) The Natty Newt Men do not have Batty Bat Men style monopoly.

@recoveringacademic There are some areas of ambiguity here, mainly around dates and people not following processes and therefore wriggle room having been created which helped facilitate the acceptance of an Appeal after the obvious end date. Not sure what your intermediate goals are here beyond your desire that your neighbour not getting Permission. After 20 minutes I have: 1 - Seems to have been a delegated decision, which the applicant complained about the processing thereof, which was then referred to Committee 11/5/2016. 2 - Applicant submitted further material to committee dated 9/5/2016. Intriguingly there is at least one doc dated *after* the committee meeting in the issue control of the doc itself ie the datestamp put on it by the applicant. https://publicaccess.wyre.gov.uk/online-applications/files/EB418E21A5A7FBC5D2982CF4F387D86D/pdf/15_00805_OUT-Site_Levels_2.pdf-14685.pdf 3 - Decision Notice is dated 12/5. Seems orthodox, except couched as a letter from the Head of Planning. 4 - There seems to be an Update Notice dated 12/5/2016 which afaics relates to the extra submission of the Applicant. The Update Notice seems to modify the "reasons for refusal". Dunno if this is material in being something which makes the Committee Decision untenable. 5 - For a reason best known to themselves, the Council published nothing until 7 July. It appears that the above convinced the Planning Inspectorate to accept that the case was exceptional enough to use their discretion to accept the Appeal after date. This is the para after your quote above in the PI letter. What is your aim here? Do you intend to stop this Appeal in its tracks, or point up that this can happen and discuss it, and perhaps come back at the Council later? AFAIK once an Appeal Decision is i place, it is impossible to overturn short of a Judicial Review or a Ministerial Call-in, and beyond that you then are into the Civil Legal System (which is the High Court) against your neighbour. To try and stop it now will be Solicitor's or MP's Letters to the PI or a Judicial Review of their decision (may be out of date for that), To find more detail I think you will need the further correspondence of the PI, the Council and the Applicant - which will be FOIs on the Council and the PI, and examining the Planning Fire. Ferdinand

@PeterWThat is presumably code for something you might like to tell me via PM . Had a look and a tour. Looking at the site, it is very tight and obviously built out to the max with small gardens and insufficient wight given to orientation (imo). Driven by the amount that had to be paid for the plot? (What was the advertised price?) Privacy quite compromised by large windows onto the cul-de-sac road for a couple of them. There are 7 detached bungalows on the site now. These 5 and two more modern style on the way in as a separate application. Also 5 terraces under a separate app on the adjacent site. Interesting little backlands development area of exactly the type we should be using now. These 5 bungalows replace a previous app for 4 houses. 1 = 5 2.5 story terrace/semi dwellings. https://publicaccess.newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=MQCF47LB68000 2 = 2 detached bungs on back garden. Carefully argued Application. Would have been easy to trip up. https://publicaccess.newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk/online-applications/caseDetails.do?caseType=Application&keyVal=O8ICARLBISS00 3 = 5 big bungs as described in op (2 chalet) https://publicaccess.newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=NZCFM2LB0A400 4 = Previous app for 4 det. houses. https://publicaccess.newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=MBZ216LB68000 (Hope those links work) Densities are all approx 30/ha. Existence of adjacent PPs used in justification. On the site under discussion, all generous rooms and all bedrooms doubles, but upvc double glazing. The two non-traditional designs had a dark grey upvc double glazing where the frames were surprisingly effective looking from a distance. Someone has convinced the builder it is to "highest possible standards" (shades of "best possible taste"). Finish perhaps, but the cavity walls are 110mm rockwool cavity ie basic building regs. Quite nice kitchen/living areas and some views over playing fields, but the orientations ... ouch. Ferdinand

Is it framed as a recommendation or an instruction? If the former you can ignore it anyway, at a slight risk of Council nose being put out of joint. I ignored the "Beech or Oak" recommendation and went for a Pryus Chanticleer for my new TPO tree. If it is an instruction i think you will get away with it anyway. But imo there are many better things to use that are less gloomy than Laurel. And Laurel is a bugger to maintain eventually, and gets leggy. If you want something different with big shiny leaves, you could try Myrtle, which is also salt-fast. But also imo gloomy. Ferdinand

On topic: One probem imo is that paybacks can be relatively long term. I think that @AliG has something in saying that Double Glazing and Central Heating have now become essentials for most people. Around here it is very significantly more difficult to let out such properties unless you are well-down the market. I can see decent EPC numbers and other items developing that way. It just takes a generation to bed in. Our rate of newbuild of 1/3 of eg Germany doesn't help either. I think the energy explanations have political factors too, which obscure the common sense rationality. Energy is relatively cheap. Energy is required to be portrayed as expensive because people need to prove that a market-based-as-possible system doesn't work, in order to justify their renationalisation dogmas. I think what will happen is that we will get a huge moral panic, then the politicians will mandate whatever flippity-flappity-flop idea from Think Tank 642 has their attention that week, and we will have to live with a less worse, but half-baked, solution. See EPCs and rental regulation for examples of the process. It needs differential Stamp Duty, and perhaps a small but niggling "nudge" discount on property taxes .. say 10% for very good houses, down to 2% for better than average. And somehow to bring visibilty to efficiency stuff in the rental market. Off topic: Ditto railways. It is also like Zero Hour contracts being required to be evil for political purposes, despite the inconvenient fact that about 70% of people on them repeatedly poll as saying they like them. @recoveringacademic Unfortunately not in the mainstream media. Beeboid website stirring up about the Emma Watson "seethrough blouse on Vanity Fair Cover" this week, first in their Trending section and then with wee Emma rabbiting on about heaven knows what. Except it just wasn't true, and you just had to see the VF website display of the cover for a nice fashionable blouse. BBC idiots. I can't claim that they made it up, because that would require the people to have sufficient competence to make it up. I am going to get some comments for that last one, aren't I? Ferdinand

Yep :-). Though ours sort of "piled" rather than hedged. Perhaps there are bush varities. it also goes up walls by leaning on them rather than self attaching. Half a dozen plants will create the most marvellous "thicket" after 10 years. It can take a bit to get going ... ours at the new house 3 years on in poor soil are doing OK but need perhaps 4-5 more to fill the gaps they are in. After a couple of decades we would leave it for 5 years then take out a few of the branches 5-10ft back. Alternative to beech is hornbeam if you have a really heavy soil.

This is unfortunately outside my ken. Would love to do something like that. I do know if takes *years* to sort out if it gets in a tangle with the Water Company. Friend did have a large pond or 3 (to the extent that people came around on spec asking for fishing lakes after Google spotting), and a new water main going through somehow damaged it and it drained. Took 5+ years to obtain a resolution. Would quite like to know what the limitations on eg boating is if it suddenly catches protected wildlife.

Aucuba could be a good alternative to laurel. I think informal and mixed is a good idea, even as bushes behind a formal hedge. You can always add an interesting climber into your hedge. Personally I think holly is wonderful. Our old place had a lot of holly planted years ago, and there were areas up to about 25 feet plus. How it grows depends very much on conditions. How you feed it can make a huge difference. Perhaps there is something to be said by buying from a nursery with simular or worse conditions to your location? For protection I am partial to Gorse (esp. near the sea) or Pyracantha. In the new (lane in town place) we have planted pryacantha and variegated holly more as gap fillers behind low stone walls. Potted is interesting to pay for if you are getting 400 plants ! Ferdinand

I bags the credit for providing the solution at post two.

What fantastic news to hear.

If it wrinkled I can look in the mirrored surface and pretend I am 21.

If I had an empty garage to hand I would have some of that. The price is 25% below Wickes price for 100mm, even with the 5 for 4 offer and the extra 15% discount currently available. Even if the 10% Wickes Trade Discount could be stacked on top (and I do not think you can), it would still be at £30 for a 100mm sheet. Ferdinand

You should see the discussions on Garden Law about the height of fences in sloping gardens :-). 99.9% of people do what seems reasonable and everyone is not unhappy, but then someone puts a trampoline in at the bottom of their garden next to someone else's house, and so the overlooked put in a garden structure with trellis on it, or even something narrow and 3.9m high with a tiddly doubled pitched roof which is a "shed", then someone adds a solar sail and so on. Or the ground level fandango can be invoked, as I think the test tends to be to "original ground level" which is manipulable since it can be no longer there. But "what about our side of the fence from the complainant" is quite easily dealt with if the difference is not outrageous. Very much the tactic used by Garden Office Builders to keep their ridgeline under 4m (?). My theory is that boundary problems actually have to do with being a part-densely populated island in love with gardens and limited development land. Are there fewer disputes in Scotland (ignoring the ones concerning Hadrian's Wall) and Shropshire? I think we have followed a good basic conversation which allows the Op to act within a couple of posts with a probably-useful trip round the mulberry bush which will help some surfers. I hope (I like mulberry bushes). Looking forward to the answer.

Oh, and hello again Dee. How did the drive turn out?

Where does that not-a-smiley live? Is there a Yankee-Doodle one with a single finger?

Do you have proof of this? His middle name could be Finknottle. Or Livingstone.

Indeed. This is not Highlander with Kevin McLoud of Clan McLoud. Pleased to know about the notify slider. Now I can pontificate less and listen more.