Monthly Archives: March 2012

Making Some Changes To Your Home – Is Planning Permission Necessary?

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There have been a number of changes made recently in Britain to planning permission requirements especially for smaller home based projects that don’t interfere with neighbouring properties and are not visible to road users.

However, planning permission might be essential if you want to build a completely new structure, add to or change one of your original structures, alter what you intend to use the land for or wish to make any other physical alterations to the property you own.

If you intend to go about making alterations to any part of your property however small the project may be and you neither check to see if planning permission is required nor do you apply for planning permission when you know you are required to do so then you will have to accept the consequences when confronted by a council planning department official.

There are some property situations which are unique, for example, if the property you own is a “listed” property. In this situation, if any changes are to be made, application has to be made under a listed building consent application. This has to be prepared even if it is unnecessary to go to the planning department to get planning permission.

There are some areas in Britain that have additional restrictions on building alterations. These are areas where any building work might have an effect on the perceived nature of the area whose character as a result of building work may be completely changed.

Most of us who have acquired property will be aware whether we are living in an area of any historic or natural significance and will pay particular care and attention when attempting to make any alterations to our property. These areas are thoroughly described in conservation area literature which can be viewed, downloaded and printed straight off the internet.

Some alterations to property have restrictions if they overlook a public footpath so safeguarding walkers who might not want to have to turn their eyes away every time they walk past a newly constructed wing of a house where all the activities in the house can be seen. Obviously, some building restrictions are there to protect the privacy of members of the public.

If you have any questions to be answered, then a form is available from the local planning department, where you can outline your intentions and then await a response. Your architect who is doing the designing for you should know the ins and outs of the necessity for planning permission.

It should be firmly stated here that if there is uncertainty about the need for you to get planning permission then check as there are hefty fines for those of us who breach the planning permission code as well as being asked to remove the building in question with a deadline date attached to it. In the long run, it is better to adhere to the requirements than have to go about a long dismantling process and all its associated costs.

Planning Permission and House Building

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If you do not wish to follow the pack by putting a down payment on a unit or terrace in a very ordinary street in a very ordinary town, it might be a possibility to buy a piece of land and construct your own house on it. Some pieces of land come with planning permission and some do not. But if you search hard there are some nice pieces of land available on the market today which do have what is termed as detailed planning permission.

Anybody who has that endless dream to be different from the masses only has to get out into the countryside and buy a piece of land in what, to many, looks like a rather dank, boggy field, and either get a builder to do the building work and you, along with an architect, draw up the plan or design and build it yourself. It could certainly be a bit mind boggling putting your hard earned savings into a piece of land that you, currently, would be unable to live in but as your dream becomes reality you will in the end have a beautiful one-of-its-type property standing alone surrounded by your garden of Eden. .

If you decide to buy a section that already has detailed planning permission, this actually means that the payment you are making includes the plans drawn up by an architect along with the money and time that has been expended putting the property before the planning department in order to get building approval. What you must think about, however, is that planning permission that has been granted is for the construction of a certain home on a particular section of land and it has to be constructed in less than three years.

The alternative to full or detailed planning permission is what is termed outline planning permission. This is a situation where the consent for the actual site for the new house has been established but no permission has yet been granted for the final layout and design.

It is possible in the detailed planning permission scenario to make changes to the house design later but you have to front up with this new design to the planning department. If your idea is not agreed to then you will have to modify your design until an agreement between you and the planning department can be reached.

The main advantage to buying a piece of land with detailed planning permission is that even though you have to stay in with agreement with the original plan on the size and actual outer appearance you can work alongside the builders and architects to get the property to better suit your taste.

Another advantage is that you get to choose the property developer who is to build the final house and finally your property will look nothing like anyone else’s and it will be both your home and your investment.

Swiss Bunkers Give an Idea for Us Here in Britain

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If you are thinking of how you are going to add extra space to your house because you simply can’t afford to move to somewhere bigger you may be interested in the examples provided below of the practically minded Swiss. Just one thing! Don’t even think of going the basement conversion way as a diy project. Do yourself a favour and employ a good architect like architects London and get the conversion done professionally.

The Swiss apparently have more than 2000 acres of building buried under their houses. Supposedly these basements were originally intended as nuclear bunkhouses in case some idiot pressed the wrong set of buttons, but it appears these days the 7.5 million Swiss inhabitants are turning to these basement bargains and turning them into all sorts of possible uses.

With the proviso that the basement shelter can be restored to its former protective state within 24 hours, then there is no stopping what the extra potential living space can be used for in the meantime. By restoring the shelter to its original function includes having armoured doors and a functioning ventilation system and a W.C.

The shelters have been used for all sorts of things ranging from discos to shooting ranges to computer rooms, exercise rooms and simple bedrooms. This is all plain knowledge to the Swiss Federal office for Civil protection, which is in charge of the bunkers.

Some more unusual uses for these emergency nuclear bunkers include saunas, a huge pizza oven while in another the owner has painted his bunker ceiling with a Sistine-Chapel style painting. Apparently, the Swiss take this experimentation and practicality with a pinch of salt and the topic of bunker basement use has become an item of polite conservation at formal and informal social occasions alike almost like the supposedly customary conservation about the weather in Britain.

Not all of Switzerland’s seven million odd nuclear shelters are altered in any radical way. Many are just used as wine cellars or used to store spare household items or food. The fact that nobody is worried any more about war means that the Swiss can be imaginative about the use to which they put their basements. After school clubs, mushroom farms and private bars are becoming more and more popular so one might wonder what the untouched variety of shelter could possibly look like.

Each bunker is supposed to come complete with a set of bunks which can be folded up so that they can be stored elsewhere when not in use. It looks as if the days of the nuclear shelter are numbered even when the desire to create extra living space down under is blossoming. The government may soon stop making the necessity to build nuclear bunkers a compulsory necessity. A motion has been put forward to the Swiss Parliament to abolish the need to build them in future.

This might be bad news for the nuclear bunker industry which is facing an uncertain future at best. It won’t stop the way the Swiss have been eyeing up the bunkers that have already been built with a creative flair even if the number of bunkers does decline in future.

A final comment on the bunker “industry” is the way in which it’s been used to house tourists. In Verbier there is a former 123 bed nuclear shelter that provides hostel accommodation at a very reasonable rate given Switzerland’s generally high hotel prices. The name of the hostel is, surprise, surprise: “The Bunker”!