I've not blogged for a little while because we unfortunately had our discharge of conditions application rejected by the council. This came as a complete shock to us and our architecht who had spoken to them before our submission to clarify exactly what was needed.
West Berkshire Council have apparently had a lot of people leave from their planning department which has led to different individuals looking at our case.
A new tree officer's comments late in the day led to our application being denied.
Essentially, they want us to protect trees not on our land. We thought we had done enough to satisfy this by saying we would be putting up tree protective fencing, but alas, it wasn't enough.
Which has put me in the foulest of moods for weeks.
Technically, until our conditions are satisfied, we shouldn't be doing anything else we risk enforcement action.
This means site clearance and ground works. Which is what we have been waiting to do! We are ready to go!
Fortunately, my mum has been a huge help and has arranged an arborist from her work to come and take a look at our site. He says it's all standard and he will write a report for us that will satisfy the conditions.
Our architecht came and visited earlier this week to and we finalised materials, as that was another condition we had to satisfy. Apparently WBC didn't want physical
Samples...so none were sent. After all, one can quite easily Google what cedar cladding looks like. But no. Turns out they now do want physical samples. So that's what they will get!
Whatever they want, we will get!! Anything so we can legally start work!
On the work front. We have actually started...
Andy took one of the extensions down!
3 tip runs it took which wasn't too bad. Much cheaper than a skip!
We've been told that you don't need the councils permission or planning permisison to take down old extensions. So I hope we are ok!
Andy has also started digging an inspection pit. Definitely not foundations. It's just an inspection trench. To inspect. Things like...roots. Soil type. Etc.
He's dug a metre so far with our handy tractor digger we purchased from ebay about a year and a half ago.
The soil is heavy with clay. We need the architecht structural engineer to tell us how deep they need to go. Apparently building control will give us the depth but it will be completely over the top! We've heard of them telling people to dig down 3 metres in some instances! Given we have a flat roof single story, hopefully it won't be too much more!
We also fired up our Rayburn a few weeks back. Mr Browne has finished our plumbing and a mighty good job he has done!
We have a safety system where by if the cooker gets too hot and the hot water tank is as hot as it should be, the heating will automatically turn on and pump hot water around to try and relieve the pressure. It works a treat! Very proud of those two as it was a right pickle!
As part of the taking down on the extension, we moved the shed and caravan. Our new home is back under a tree which is horrendous when it rains.
The tree we are under is also a mature council owned horse chestnut tree which has unfortunately died (genuinely nothing to do with us).
We now have a nice view across the field from the caravan which is nice!
It really does look like a building site!
The front of the house is now visible so we've given it a bit of a clean.
Gonna give it a re-paint to!
Kitchen is pretty much there. We have water. We have electric!
Need to attempt the tiling and just finish off the cladding in the ceiling. They are cosmetic jobs that can wait...and they will wait!
We both have 2 weeks off work so will plod on. It was our intention that we would have full planning by this time so the 2 weeks would be spent digging foundations and getting them filled with concrete and ordering the Beco Wallform bricks we are building out of.
If Grand Designs and Restoration Man and those programs have taught us, it's that delays in planning are part and parcel of any project!
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