Tricky Planning Permission

[MBrash]

Hello to all,

 

I've recently acquired a piece of land alongside the Thames and am looking into the possibility of building a single house on it. There is existing access from the road to an existing building, albeit not one that was ever used for habitation. The rather large elephant in the room is that it's in the floodplain which is going to make achieving planning tricky. From memory I know that in the floods of 2003 the water didn't quite reach the existing building, (which is about 150m from the river), but it was a close thing, so we're almost certainly looking at something on stilts, which is fine by me. 

 

We've had the flood risk assessors report and it's a mixture of good and bad news, but it was suggested to me by my surveyor that one option to improve how the application is looked at is to make the construction carbon neutral. This would obviously increase the building costs, but may well be worth it if it means we can go ahead.

 

I've had a quick look on the internet and while there's plenty on houses that are carbon neutral to run, there doesn't seem to be anything about carbon neutral construction.

 

I was wondering whether anyone has any experience in this area, or can point me in the direction of some information, which would be greatly appreciated, as, of course would any other advice.

 

 

Cheers!

 

 

 

 

[ProDave]

There was the grand designs house by the thames built on effectively a captive float, and the whole house floated up when it flooded.

 

Stilts sounds a lot simpler and cheaper, just determine the highest likely flood level ever and make it higher.

 

All timber construction would give you a carbon neutral design, look at all that natural carbon already removed from the atmosphere by growing the trees that you are now safely storing to keep the carbon locked up.

 

Build it as a passive house with ASHP etc and lots of PV panels to generate more power than you use.  Planting more trees would probably score you brownie points as well.

 

I think this is definitely one where you need a good planning consultant.

[Big Jimbo]

IMO you deffo need a good planning consultant. He will really need to sell the carbon negative (even better) to the local old gits on the parish P.C. and the council planning dept. I feel that if you dont sell it really well, public consultation etc, (Free tea and cake at the local villiage hall) to get a lot of local support, the council will just ignore your good intensions.

[MBrash]

9 hours ago, ProDave said:

There was the grand designs house by the thames built on effectively a captive float, and the whole house floated up when it flooded.

 

Stilts sounds a lot simpler and cheaper, just determine the highest likely flood level ever and make it higher.

 

All timber construction would give you a carbon neutral design, look at all that natural carbon already removed from the atmosphere by growing the trees that you are now safely storing to keep the carbon locked up.

 

Build it as a passive house with ASHP etc and lots of PV panels to generate more power than you use.  Planting more trees would probably score you brownie points as well.

 

I think this is definitely one where you need a good planning consultant.

Hiya, yes, I saw that episode, I strongly doubt my budget would stretch to that, and I'd be constantly worried about it failing! 

[Bournbrook]

On 27/04/2023 at 15:49, Big Jimbo said:

IMO you deffo need a good planning consultant. He will really need to sell the carbon negative (even better) to the local old gits on the parish P.C. and the council planning dept. I feel that if you dont sell it really well, public consultation etc, (Free tea and cake at the local villiage hall) to get a lot of local support, the council will just ignore your good intensions.

Or ‘she’

[Big Jimbo]

8 minutes ago, Katie AG said:

Or ‘she’

Indeed @Katie AG Or some great photo's of the planning officer. Get the right one's and they will get whatever you want through planning.