Living offgrid and isolated ?

[SteamyTea]

15 minutes ago, Big Jimbo said:

I know a few boaters who have managed to reside on the wrong side of the canal, against land that was gifted years ago for the enjoyment of the public.

There are a few estuaries down here where you can, legally, put your boat for nothing.

I have known a few people that have lived there.

Call then the Freak at Gweek. 

[ProDave]

The biggest issue with illegal "residential" moorings on canals and rivers, with boats that never move, is just where do they pump out their toilets? (and I think we know the answer)

[Jeremy Harris]

46 minutes ago, Big Jimbo said:

And that's the trouble Jeremy. If you are on the P.C. and want a swimming pool enclosure, or a large extension. No problem. At the last P.C. meeting, they were looking at a total of 12 planning applications. No new builds, just extensions. They objected to all of them. That means that all those applications now have to go to committee. What a waste of public funds, and time. They have zero training, and i would go as far as taking the vote away from them. The only people who should be allowed to object, are the neighbours who may be directly effected.

 

 

My experience suggests that 99% of the time all PC objections are ignored by the planners, anyway.  The only way the PC can have any significant impact is if they manage to persuade their local authority councillor to call the application in to committee (PCs don't have that authority).  I've seen that happen once, for an application that was bonkers, it was for 2m high steel fencing, with an electric gate in the centre, surrounding a house in the conservation area.  The applicant heard of the PC objection, spoke to his agent and told him to withdraw the application, revise it and resubmit it.  Turned out that the applicant hadn't actually looked at the original  drawings that had been submitted, as they had been drawn up by his tenant, who wanted to turn the house into Fort Knox.  The owner thought the application was just to replace a dilapidated wall with a new fence and gate.

[Big Jimbo]

1 hour ago, Jeremy Harris said:

 

 

My experience suggests that 99% of the time all PC objections are ignored by the planners, anyway.  The only way the PC can have any significant impact is if they manage to persuade their local authority councillor to call the application in to committee (PCs don't have that authority).  I've seen that happen once, for an application that was bonkers, it was for 2m high steel fencing, with an electric gate in the centre, surrounding a house in the conservation area.  The applicant heard of the PC objection, spoke to his agent and told him to withdraw the application, revise it and resubmit it.  Turned out that the applicant hadn't actually looked at the original  drawings that had been submitted, as they had been drawn up by his tenant, who wanted to turn the house into Fort Knox.  The owner thought the application was just to replace a dilapidated wall with a new fence and gate.

Can't agree i'm afraid. If the P.c. object in my area, and many others that i know, then the application has to go to committee. Waste of time and money, and is why P.C vote should be taken away.

[Crofter]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

There are a few estuaries down here where you can, legally, put your boat for nothing.

I have known a few people that have lived there.

Call then the Freak at Gweek. 

 

Is the estuary subject to charges for even transient anchoring?

Normally the actual right to anchor remains, but charges can be levied at pontoons/jetties. And it would be pretty hard to live on a boat without having somewhere suitable to get ashore.

 

Of course it's a different matter if you start discriminating between being anchored and laying a permanent mooring...

[Tennentslager]

I’m a hutter at Carbeth, cost me £10k to build and I could live there off grid easily enough...might sell the house once the youngest has gone and do just that

look here for how to go about it in

glorious Scotia

 

https://www.thousandhuts.org/

 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

26 minutes ago, Big Jimbo said:

Can't agree i'm afraid. If the P.c. object in my area, and many others that i know, then the application has to go to committee. Waste of time and money, and is why P.C vote should be taken away.

 

 

Challenge it, as that's outwith the authority of any PC in England, for sure.  All a PC can do is object in the same way as any other consultee.  The objections of the PC carry no more, and no less, weight than any other consultee.  A PC cannot call an application in to committee, they don't have that authority, but they can ask their local councillor to call it in, as local councillors do have the authority to call in any application.  Our local councillor would usually agree to call in an application if the PC asked her to, but she isn't under any obligation to do that.

 

The problem would be proving that a PC has acted outwith its authority, perhaps, although if there was evidence that they had directly requested that an application be called in, and there was no other evidence to support that (like a local authority councillor calling it in, or the number of objections having passed the trigger level for it to go to committee) then the local authority and the PC could be called to account for breaching their powers.

[SteamyTea]

2 hours ago, Crofter said:

Is the estuary subject to charges for even transient anchoring?

 

As far as I know, no.

There is what they call 'The Muddy Bank' at Penryn and lots of estuaries and tidal tributaries around Gweek and Constantine.

The last time I had any dealings with the Muddy Bank lot, they were very hostile.

Firsts picture in Muddy Bank, second is Gweek.

[gc100]

Really there are much better countries to go live off grid than the U.K. and much much cheaper. I would just go abroad as it doesn’t matter what country you are living in if you are off grid as you won’t be talking to anyone local....

[Waterworks]

Do council planning departments patrol their area looking for huts in the woods , caravans on farms and other low key dwellings or do they rely on complaints before they take any interest ?

 

 

[jamieled]

I doubt they have the manpower. Some are using systems involving analysis of aerial photography.

[SteamyTea]

I suspect that it is a combination of being shopped and random observations.

 

A mate of mine used to live in a tent.  Was a 9 man artic army tent.  He could pack up and move on within a couple of hours.

He then rented an industrial unit and lived in that for about 4 years.

[Jeremy Harris]

7 hours ago, Waterworks said:

Do council planning departments patrol their area looking for huts in the woods , caravans on farms and other low key dwellings or do they rely on complaints before they take any interest ?

 

 

 

I'm pretty sure they just reply on reports they receive.  Thie island of ours doesn't have too many truly remote places, so it's likely that someone will usually spot something out of place, plus there seem to be some that like to do nothing better than complain, just because they can.

 

As an example, my mother's old farm, that she bought around 1973, had the farmhouse about 400m up a track from the farm buildings.  A detached garage had been built at the top of this track long before she bought the place.  Around 3 years after she moved there, a group from the Rambler's Association walked up the track, stopped at the garage and complained (rather rudely and loudly) that the garage had been built over a public footpath.  They were right, it had, and following their formal complaint to the planners mother had to get consent to re-route the path around it, with a couple of stiles over walls and some new fencing.  In the next 10 years she lived there not a soul ever walked up that path again.

[Stones]

44 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

I suspect that it is a combination of being shopped and random observations.

 

Exactly this, a combination of officer observation and complaints or queries from the public or elected members.

[joe90]

My wife and I have different views on planning permissions, her worry is that there are not enough local services ( doctors, schools jobs etc etc) in remote places, but my view is if a small plot is not being used for agricultural use ( grazing animals or growing foodstuffs) and someone wants to build an “appropriate” home and accepts their remote location then why not. I believe rural communities either expand and thrive or dwindle and die. If we wait fir services to expand it will never happen, we have more chance that in a thriving location the services will follow.

 

edit to add, I would love to live in a cabin in the woods. Ben Law is my all time hero.

Edited April 27, 2020 by joe90

[SteamyTea]

8 minutes ago, joe90 said:

edit to add, I would love to live in a cabin in the woods

Grow some trees on your paddock and your dream will come true.

If you had planted some saplings when you started your build, it would be ready now.

10 minutes ago, joe90 said:

if a small plot is not being used for agricultural use ( grazing animals or growing foodstuffs) and someone wants to build an “appropriate” home and accepts their remote location then why not

I look at hundreds of acres of horticultural land.  I just think, what a waste just for some flowers.

They wanted to build 1100 new homes around me, but all the rural sites got turned down.  So they have build on ex industrial land, which costs more.

So now we have a couple of hundred new houses that are quite expensive for the area.

But we do now have a KFC and a new pub.  And a Costa.  I have never been in any of them.

[joe90]

37 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Grow some trees on your paddock and your dream will come true.

not sure I will live long enough to enjoy them but it’s on the ( extensive) “to do” list along with meadows flowers 

 

37 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

So they have build on ex industrial land, which costs more.

true but I am a believer in building on brown field sites, perhaps the gov could incentivise with tax breaks or help in clear up costs?

 

right, I am off to a neighbours with my (now working) dumper to help him shift logs in his ancient oak woodlands ( can’t find a jealous emoji)

Edited April 27, 2020 by joe90

[Waterworks]

On 25/04/2020 at 13:37, ProDave said:

The biggest issue with illegal "residential" moorings on canals and rivers, with boats that never move, is just where do they pump out their toilets? (and I think we know the answer)

They can and do have chemical toilets that can be emptied at any canal side sanitation station. 

 

 

[Waterworks]

On 25/04/2020 at 13:13, Big Jimbo said:

Some of the boat people can be a strange breed. I know a few boaters who have managed to reside on the wrong side of the canal, against land that was gifted years ago for the enjoyment of the public. They told the relevant bods to bugger off when they came knocking, and have been there for years.

You can own the land next to the canal but your boat is moored on the water which you don't own , so its always up to the water owner whether you can moor there or not, you have no right to moor next to land you own, most likely the canal and river trust or environment agency, and both of those entail rent payments, licences, insurance, safety inspections and complying with multiple regulations.

[Big Jimbo]

They argued that the canal was part of the land that was gifted.......

[SteamyTea]

49 minutes ago, Big Jimbo said:

They argued that the canal was part of the land that was gifted.......

Who argued?

 

I don't think canals are treated the same as rivers.

My sister has a canal boat business and is always whining about something or other to do with the authorities.

 

 

[ProDave]

1 hour ago, Waterworks said:

They can and do have chemical toilets that can be emptied at any canal side sanitation station. 

 

 

Which if the boat never moves we all know is never going to happen.  Responsible boaters always use the proper facilities.

[Waterworks]

On 27/04/2020 at 17:47, ProDave said:

Which if the boat never moves we all know is never going to happen.  Responsible boaters always use the proper facilities.

If they have no vehicle to transport the chemical toilet to the disposal point yes, unless they have accessed a sewer . Or you can set up a composting system. When I travelled the canals on my boat I had man hole keys and a standpipe kit, I rarely used them though as there are taps and sewage points all over the canal system. 

 

Dumping sewage into the canal which rarely has any flow it would just stay all around your boat and build up, you'd end up living in a sewer. 

[Waterworks]

On 27/04/2020 at 16:55, Big Jimbo said:

They argued that the canal was part of the land that was gifted.......

That can't happen on any canal that is still in use.

[scottishjohn]

On 25/04/2020 at 07:57, Ferdinand said:

I think the concept of "Bush" does not really exist in the UK any more

you not been following my thread then  still plenty here - but within sensible distance of civilisation

multiple attacks on clearing roads and site

Edited May 1, 2020 by scottishjohn