[john and helen]

  Hi Guy's.

this is a bit of a weird one i have checked the best i could, but have not found the answer

ref Static caravan's. now i know you can have a S-van in the cartilage of your House but someone told me , you don't need PP if its in , lets say a agri barn ..the problem is ..at the moment, i would say there is no cartilage as the building has no PP

the other thing is(i know i need to ask the planning office,) but!!!! what would you thing the chances of getting PP for what was once a coaching house, but now its just storage in to a 1 or two bedroom single dwelling

the property comes with nearly 4 acres with some nice outbuildings … one being the old coach house I think it will have some sort of listing, as the main house is grade 2 listed,

whats your thoughts.its OK!!! i am not running away with this.but it would be perfect, and only 25 miles from me now 

[lachlanandmarcus]

I would say under the new planning national guidelines the chances are quite good to get residential on an old coach house. Especially if if can be done in a way that enhances its original features and condition.


There are several reasons why you may not need PP for a static. One is if it's for incidental use and is in the domestic curtilage of a house (which may not apply here as no garden probably originally, tho in PP app for residential conversion/reinstatement you can apply to change the use of some land around it to domestic garden ground, which would then enable you to use this.


We did this recently when applying to reinstate a cottage ruin and extend it substantially. We waited until the new policy came in as it's by itself in the countryside and so normally planners not keen but under new policy the reinstatement of previously used buildings is a key positive.


However you might not need to. If you apply for and get PP for the major renovation, many councils will allow as part of that PP (they assume you will need to) temporarily site a static there and live in it during the conversion. Under this, they will expect it to be removed once the work is complete and during the period of use you will be charged band A council tax on it. Once you have your PP you can ask them to confirm this will be OK. This option is better than relying on the curtilage argument as the latter only allows incidental use ie not supposed to do things like bath and cook in it except as supplementary to doing it in the house.


Being listed will mean you will need listed building consent as well as PP. normally this is no extra cost for the app but obviously the materials etc used are normally more expensive and often there would be a presumption against alterations to the footprint of the building unless you can demonstrate they are a real enhancement to the listed building, there is no permitted development.


For example our Scottish farm cottage is only 2 beds but cost nigh on 10k to renovate cos of listing (non listed would have been about 60k) and despite the extreme weather we could not have a porch on the house as the exterior has to stay the same (altho ours is GII* not GII so you might get a bit more leeway). HOWEVER we end up living in a beautiful house with healthy and high quality materials that will look better and better as time passes, unlike modern shortcuts which never improve with age.


Hope this helps a bit.

[Berkshire Boy]

I can't see why getting planning on the coach house would be a problem.I worked on one a few years ago, The main house was listed and so was the coach house. It was all done sympathetically and works really well.

[doganjo]

If it's been used for something else in between though it would need change of use surely?

[lachlanandmarcus]

If it's been used for something else in between though it would need change of use surely?

Yes it def would, as would something like our ruin which had only ever been a cottage but was deemed to be defunct as no roof and only one gable.


BUT having originally been a house makes it much much more likely that the planners will say yes, as it doesn't create any sort of precedent for other applications on eg greenfield sites and is easy to justify as a one off.


Although it doesnt seem like it, planners do like to say yes as they have housing targets to meet, but not if it means lots of other unsuitable applications will have to be passed quoting this as a precedent. That wouldn't be the case here so it's probably the alterations to make it suitable for modern living VS the listing aspect that will be the only major headache, unless there are other factors that have made it unsuitable for reinstatement to a modern in the period of non residential use. Eg there will need to be sufficient space for parking provision and turning said vehicles.

[john and helen]

this really is a miss mash 

I can see why many people wouldn't want it… the main house, is actually being used as a car breakers..

the barn come, coach house, and outbuildings are  separated from the main house, and the rear of the coach house is just fields and woods ..but you would need to pass a few dozen scrap cars to get to your entrance…..

for us , thats no big deal… we are not worried about noise during the day,

lie make a call to get a viewing .. 

[Berkshire Boy]

Do you really want to live in a scrap yard. Not exactly living the dream.

[john and helen]

  its not really in… plus there is also another 14 acres for the taking, which would mean doing away with the scrap yard entrance altogether …..

[lachlanandmarcus]

You don't need to own it to apply for planning and could buy it subject to pp? Including for the new separate entrance ESP if that's important (it maybe less for you but maybe if you ever needed to sell)

[john and helen]

Good points LIM 

[HesterF]

We live in a grade 2 listed building and got PP earlier this year to convert one of our courtyard buildings into a holiday cottage. It is listed in its own right but has never been used for residential before - it is very much of the storage variety. It did, however, take a long time and a good architect to help. Our borough council is renowned as hard for PP but it was the conservation officer (who deals with the listed building consent) who was much harder work. We needed to not only open up bricked in windows but create new ones and she was very strongly against that. In the end the planning officer had to overrule her on the basis a holiday cottage has no appeal when the living room has no windows. The whole process is supposed to take six weeks from when the first application goes in. In order to smooth the process, we submitted proposed plans before the official application so we could make sure we'd taken all of the potential objections into account and amended the drawings before applying officially. It seemed to make no different, to be honest, and even though we'd taken out every single thing they objected to, they (mostly the conservation officer) still found more things. In the end it took about seven months to get something through.

Our permission has been granted on the basis it is only a holiday cottage and the borough council is entitled to check our visitor records at any time to check that that's how it's being used. We have also applied for various other buildings but none of them will be residential so we've had to sacrifice even more on them (apparently if you don't sleep in a building, you don't need natural light - don't follow the logic of that one). The only building neither the planner nor conservation officer were interested in is a Nissen hut which is within the curtilage but more modern and not listed in its own right. We want to glass in the ends to use it as a secure growing tunnel/chick rearing/general store and they weren't at all fussed about that.

I think it would be hard to buy subject to PP - just because of the timing and cost. It does cost to get PP, not least because you'll have to pay somebody to do all the drawings and so forth as well as paying the Borough Council. And then if it's anything like ours, you'll be hanging around for a long time potentially in limbo to see whether you are going to buy or not.

[HesterF]

By the way, it is pretty simple to check if the coach house is listed in its own right - I can't remember where I checked but I googled and found a way to search for all listed buildings within our postcode.

[lachlanandmarcus]

The RCHAMS does it (online listing search and descriptions) in Scotland as does Historic Scotland. So maybe English Heritage in England or Cadwy in Wales?


Yep, doing planning drawings does cost, about £5k for us once all the architects fees, structural engineer reports, water test pits etc and planning fees all taken into account. It's a big gamble, if we were turned down it would have been 5k down the drain.


However outline PP would involve much less expense (a few £00, as drawings just need to be basic indications, and its the principle that is being agreed. Whether they would consider an outline app for a listed building I'm not sure tho, we did detailed as the devil is in the detail eg if they won't let you put new windows in a few places it can make the scheme unworkable for some buildings esp if used for other purposes than residential (or used for residential so long ago that needs and functions within a house were totally different to today).


Also just to say before the new planning rules the only possible way our ruined cottage would have got PP was by it being a holiday cottage, under the new rules we went for and got full unrestricted residential. So it is worth going for even if any historic applications have been for holiday or were rejected as holiday only allowed. But some LAs still may only allow holiday type applications, if they do, they should only be in the context that the application would breach policy significantly as a full residential property.

[john and helen]

Ive booked a viewing for tomorrow morning, also been in touch with the planning office, i said i would rather come in and talk to them face to face….

the electric is near by … so thats something to look into …


plus!!!! (on the welsh property)  i have just had a call from the welsh estate agents, the vendor has offered me a big reduction in price, if i am still interested..somehow, i don't think me making a big saving ,would change the neighbours even if he dropped it to  £50k