Evaluating a potential plot / Planning Consultants

[-rick-]

For the last couple of weeks I've been evaluating a green belt plot, reading the relevant local plans, NPPF, nearby planning apps, etc. My conclusion to this was that I thought the plot had decent potential to get planning (relative to other green belt plots I've looked at - I know building on green belt is diffcult in the best circumstances).

 

I've now spoken to two planning consultants. The first (my preferred) was too busy to help. The second, had a quick look and has suggested the plot is high risk, he would be willing to do a full appraisal on it for £1000 but isn't willing to have a chargable 30 min call to discuss. I have to assume he is correct as to the risk and my previous evaluation is wrong and therefore I don't want to spend £1000 on the full appraisal. But I'd very much like to get a better understanding of how he reached that initial determination both to confidently rule out this plot and as education for my continued search.

 

So how do I move forward from here? I plan to discuss it in more detail here in due course, but I'm a little hesitant to advertise the plot here until I've confidently ruled it out. In the mean time does anyone have any recommendations for a planning consultant in the north London/Hertfordshire area who is willing to charge for a conversation vs only offering full blown written apprasials?

 

Any other thoughts/suggestions greatly appreciated.

[IanR]

1 hour ago, -rick- said:

I have to assume he is correct as to the risk and my previous evaluation is wrong

 

What have you based your opinion on?

Are you aware of the NPPF Rules for Green Belt? Does the LPA have a policy in the Local Plan that says how they deal with development in the green belt?

From https://www.gov.uk/guidance/national-planning-policy-framework/13-protecting-green-belt-land

 

Quote

Proposals affecting the Green Belt

152. Inappropriate development is, by definition, harmful to the Green Belt and should not be approved except in very special circumstances.

 

153. When considering any planning application, local planning authorities should ensure that substantial weight is given to any harm to the Green Belt. ‘Very special circumstances’ will not exist unless the potential harm to the Green Belt by reason of inappropriateness, and any other harm resulting from the proposal, is clearly outweighed by other considerations.

 

154. A local planning authority should regard the construction of new buildings as inappropriate in the Green Belt. Exceptions to this are:

(a) buildings for agriculture and forestry;

(b) the provision of appropriate facilities (in connection with the existing use of land or a change of use) for outdoor sport, outdoor recreation, cemeteries and burial grounds and allotments; as long as the facilities preserve the openness of the Green Belt and do not conflict with the purposes of including land within it;

(c) the extension or alteration of a building provided that it does not result in disproportionate additions over and above the size of the original building;

(d) the replacement of a building, provided the new building is in the same use and not materially larger than the one it replaces;

(e) limited infilling in villages;

(f) limited affordable housing for local community needs under policies set out in the development plan (including policies for rural exception sites); and

(g) limited infilling or the partial or complete redevelopment of previously developed land, whether redundant or in continuing use (excluding temporary buildings), which would:

• not have a greater impact on the openness of the Green Belt than the existing development; or
• not cause substantial harm to the openness of the Green Belt, where the development would re-use previously developed land and contribute to meeting an identified affordable housing need within the area of the local planning authority.

 

You need to be able to argue one of the exceptions, otherwise the LPA will refuse.

 

If you have deep pockets with regards obtaining the planning permission, it's worth looking at "Para 80 e)" development. While it's not explicitly a green belt exception (it's regard development in the open countryside), on occasion it does get an Approval within the green belt.

[-rick-]

I was focused mainly on limited infilling in villages. The local plan does talk about allowing limited infilling in villages, but they list villages where they would consider it and this one is not on the list - so that was an open question for me how critical that list is and also whether the plot can be reasonably called infill.

 

I was also thinking there might be a case to argue it's grey belt as on the local plan the plot is in an area that is shown as minimal contribution to the green belt purposes bar the 'preserving the green belt openness'. On that point the plot is surrounded by properties on all sides (there are open bits of land a little further away). Additionally, the plot is surrounded by trees/growth that hides what I would consider building on it from most angles.

 

I do not have the deep pockets required for a Para 80 property, I also don't think the property is really open countryside. It is right on the border of non-green belt space.

Edited November 20 by -rick-

[nod]

The second time round we’ve purchased two plots I posted pictures long before we had any Interest in buying A member on here who stated he was a planning consultant said It’s a green belt field and my friend who owned it wouldn’t have a cat in hells chance He spent £500 on a planning consult and got pp for two detached houses We later obtained full planning 

Never say never Especially with this shower that are running the country

 

Farmers inheritance tax My arse 

Its to free up farmland for building 

[Jilly]

Developers often bank land they think might have potential in future at some unspecified time.

 

Are you looking at  green belt because you want to uplift the value yourself and are hoping to save money?

 

My plot was adjacent to village boundary and my fees ended up about £25k. It’s very high risk.  
 

All planning consultants are not created equal 🙃

[-rick-]

29 minutes ago, Jilly said:

Are you looking at  green belt because you want to uplift the value yourself and are hoping to save money?

 

To buy a ready to build plot would require me to sell my current place to free up funds. I can't do that just now (cladding issues in the process of being resolved) but expect to be able to in a year or two. So in the mean time I'm looking for places that I could buy now and work on over the next couple of years getting planning. Price dependent I can afford to take some risk, but only of the 'relatively good chance of planning given its green belt' sort, not the 'complete longshot' sort. Potential to save money due to the uplift is of course a consideration but not the primary motivation.

 

29 minutes ago, Jilly said:

My plot was adjacent to village boundary and my fees ended up about £25k. It’s very high risk. 

 

25k to the planning consultant, or all the professional fees to get to the point of planning?

 

If you don't mind could you say a bit more about what happened in your case?

 

43 minutes ago, Jilly said:

All planning consultants are not created equal 🙃

Indeed. I'm disappointed the first one I found is unavailable as he looked good. Second one don't know much about other than the first guys recommendation.

[Jilly]

@-rick-£25k was the approx total of the professional fees, including some wasted due to inexperience: a planning consultant who seemed to make mistakes, so we parted ways; a very good but expensive architect, who got the planning through, an architect’s technician to do the Building  Control drawings (another expensive mistake, would have been better to stay with the architect, but thought I was doing a friend a favour), plus the bats were £6k on their own.  Soils surveys, structural engineer, etc etc  

Also don’t forget electric, water services etc, mine was about £4k, but that can catch you out, some people get horrendous quotes, it’s very variable and site specific. Getting an electric kiosk was a useful tip. 

Each site/ area comes with its own circumstances and local council foibles. You could look on nearby planning applications to see what issues arise in that area or are favoured by that local authority. For example clay soils often have piled foundations specified nowadays; nitrate run off in some areas; SUDS designs;  biodiversity net gain, CIL payments to avoid etc. Some councils have good websites with info their requirements, others seem to be unhelpful. 

In the south east there seem to be few sites that the estate agents and developers have missed. Someone suggested looking out for people with large gardens in villages who might be up for selling off some land. 

 

A good planning consultant would not be wasted money. You’ll have to take some risks on a virgin site. Even if you were buying a house, you would spend on surveyors etc and might have to pull out. 

 

[Jilly]

Is the plot you are interested in actually for sale or are you going to approach the owner?

You could offer to buy ‘subject to planning’ and put up the fees. It might suit a vendor with a big garden but no cash to do it themselves and  be easiest if you have a trusting relationship. There will be a big change in the value of the land before and after, so you’d need a solicitor to prevent disputes. If you want to make all of the gain yourself you’d have to buy outright and risk it. 

 

 

 

[BigBub]

It would likely be much cheaper to use your local authority's pre-app service compared to the £1,000 appraisal

[Alan Ambrose]

I’ve had a couple of pre-app responses that were both misleading and slow. Maybe ask what the consultant would deliver for the money and also check out other consultants? Does he have an example report (redacted maybe) to share?

[-rick-]

1 hour ago, Alan Ambrose said:

I’ve had a couple of pre-app responses that were both misleading and slow. Maybe ask what the consultant would deliver for the money and also check out other consultants? Does he have an example report (redacted maybe) to share?

 

I tend to think that a pre-app for a green belt plot will get a default answer of no. To get planning on green belt you need a lot of detail going through all the policies explaining why your plan works according to those policies, etc, and obviously thats something that would cost a fair bit (time + money) to prepare.

 

I asked the consultant for a sample report and was told no.

 

The reason for this thread was to ask for recommendations for another consultant. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

[-rick-]

@Jilly My question was more aimed at how you ended up choosing/suceeding on a green belt plot.

 

13 hours ago, Jilly said:

@-rick-£25k was the approx total of the professional fees, including some wasted due to inexperience: a planning consultant who seemed to make mistakes, so we parted ways; a very good but expensive architect, who got the planning through, an architect’s technician to do the Building  Control drawings (another expensive mistake, would have been better to stay with the architect, but thought I was doing a friend a favour), plus the bats were £6k on their own.  Soils surveys, structural engineer, etc etc  

Also don’t forget electric, water services etc, mine was about £4k, but that can catch you out, some people get horrendous quotes, it’s very variable and site specific. Getting an electric kiosk was a useful tip.

 

Based on my reading of this site, £25k for all professional fees seems pretty reasonable, certainly about what I've had in mind. TBH I assume the fees on a green belt plot would be a bit higher than that.

 

13 hours ago, Jilly said:

In the south east there seem to be few sites that the estate agents and developers have missed. Someone suggested looking out for people with large gardens in villages who might be up for selling off some land.

Yes, it's very frustrating, and the sites that do show up either tend to sell almost instantly or have significant difficulties.

 

13 hours ago, Jilly said:

Is the plot you are interested in actually for sale or are you going to approach the owner?

You could offer to buy ‘subject to planning’ and put up the fees. It might suit a vendor with a big garden but no cash to do it themselves and  be easiest if you have a trusting relationship. There will be a big change in the value of the land before and after, so you’d need a solicitor to prevent disputes. If you want to make all of the gain yourself you’d have to buy outright and risk it.

 

The plot is up for auction and time is short, this is why I think this plot is off the cards for me. At this point I mostly want to know why the planning consultant suggested it wasn't worth a detailled look so that I can better make that assessment next time. With more time and the ability to negotiate with the vendor I'd be able to wait for my preferred planning consultant to become free in January and have time to work through some of the other issues.

[-rick-]

Ok update!

 

I found another consultant company. They were willing to chat on the phone for a bit during the intro call.

 

Clarified a couple of things:

1. Infill exception is only valid for places that meet a certain definition for a village (have a pub, church, or similar). The plot I was looking at is technically in a hamlet so would be a no-go on that basis (with appeal case history confirming).

 

In hindsight this aspect is something I could have probably answered myself if I'd framed the question in my mind in the right way, I knew that a lot hinged on whether it was infill and that being infill was uncertain but hadn't thought of a way of answering that without talking to a planner.

 

2. This doesn't stand:

 

20 hours ago, -rick- said:

I was also thinking there might be a case to argue it's grey belt as on the local plan the plot is in an area that is shown as minimal contribution to the green belt purposes bar the 'preserving the green belt openness'. On that point the plot is surrounded by properties on all sides (there are open bits of land a little further away). Additionally, the plot is surrounded by trees/growth that hides what I would consider building on it from most angles.

 

The planners definition of openness, is much less about this than whether there are existing buildings on the land.

 

I do wonder though if a thread talking through the assessment of various plots would be useful. This site seems to have a lot on what to do after you've got one, not so much on finding them. I've got four or 5 now that I've seriously looked (mostly as excercises) that that I could talk about.

[Alan Ambrose]

Does  your LPA have a 'cluster policy' or similar for potential plots in hamlets? My plot uses the LPA's cluster policy.

[-rick-]

The consultant didn't mention it, it doesn't ring a bell and a quick search through the local plan and core strategy for 'cluster' doesn't show anything relevant. I'll skim through it again for alternative wording later but odd's are no.

[Alan Ambrose]

OK maybe not, but here’s a doc describing their policy if you’re searching for similar terms:

 

https://www.eastsuffolk.gov.uk/assets/Planning/Planning-Policy-and-Local-Plans/Supplementary-documents/Housing-in-clusters/Housing-in-Clusters-and-Small-Scale-Residential-Development-in-the-Countryside-SPD-1.pdf

 

I think there are a few threads here already re evaluating a plot btw. I remember posting a long list of considerations back when it was top of mind. Here’s one re diligence on plots already having PP:

 

 

[-rick-]

Thanks Alan. I did look at this at the time but was feeling a bit burnt out so took a break from thinking about it more once I'd decided for sure I was no longer interested in the site.

 

The site has just been through auction:

https://www.robinsonandhallauctions.co.uk/property/land-adjacent-to-little-heath-lodge-featherbed-lane-felden-hemel-hempstead-hertfordshire-hp3-0bt/

 

It sold for £190,000 (vs £30,000 guide) so whoever bought it clearly thought they would be able to get planning for a house. I'll be keeping an eye on it to see if they succeed.

 

I wasn't interested in bidding on it without a planning consultant making positive noises and positive noises from a conveyancer about the restrictive covenants. As it turns out it went beyond what I'd have been willing to pay for it so I'm not feeling like I've missed out on something (most of my money is tied up in my property and can't sell it just yet).

[Jilly]

1 hour ago, -rick- said:

 

It sold for £190,000 (vs £30,000 guide) so whoever bought it clearly thought they would be able to get planning for a house. I'll be keeping an eye on it to see if they succeed.

 

Thanks for the update. It’s common for auctions to have a low guide price to generate interest. Either the buyer is unwary or has had positive advice perhaps.
 

Lots of people have bought little strips of agricultural land which have no real hope of planning permission in the foreseeable future. One came on here and had to be put right on what to expect for a misleadingly sold £8k plot. I have seen some turned into allotments, odd ones with caravans etc. All off grid. 
 

It can help your resilience to distance yourself emotionally, so that you have a plan B for any purchase you make in case planning fails. I’m not sure of your reasons for wanting to self build, but it’s very stressful, and having cladding issues must have been difficult.