Applying for planning permission

So, on the 11th July, we became landowners.

Our plot is half an acre of land in the Brisbane Glen, near Largs. The site contained water tanks that were part of a (clean) water treatment plant at Castlehill. Whilst it's been hard to get specific information, as we understand, the tanks were wash water tanks, used when they needed to flush clean the filter beds at the treatment plant 50m uphill.

The dirty water would rush downhill to our tanks when the sediment would settle at the bottom and the clean water at the top would run off.

The site is in Muirshiel Regional Park, and is in an area designated as 'Sensitive Country' by North Ayrshire. This means that there is a general presumption against building houses, unless they are of exceptional architectural merit.

The local plan gave three options for us to explore.

1 - New build in the countryside. Our proposal ticked all but one boxes, and the box we couldn't tick was about the policy not applying in Sensitive Countryside.
2 - Conversion of existing building - again, we ticked most boxes here, provided our water tanks were classed as a building.
3 - A policy for non-confirming uses, basically, special cases.

My first call to the planning department didn't go well - the lady I spoke to told me we wouldn't get permission. I tried to have a meaningful conversation with her, even turning it round to ask that if we weren't allowed to build a house, what could  we do - to which her response was 'nothing'. Time for Plan B.

Plan B involved speaking to the planning officer we had dealt with before at Glenhead, a lovely man. He was interested to hear about the proposal but wanted to pass me to the 'lady'  I had spoken to. I persuaded him to hear more about it and look at some high level drawings and 3D images.

He promised to look at them and also speak to his boss, the Head of Planning, and call me back. A week and a bit passed and I had to try hard not to phone and pester. I figured that if we were to have a chance at this, the less I annoyed them, the better. Eventually I got a call back - and Mr Craig broke the news quickly -the Head of Planning didn't agree that this site was suitable. Doh! Nonetheless, Mr Craig did ask some more questions about the design and seemed interested. I told him that it was disappointing, but we genuinely believed we had a strong case and would submit an application regardless. I asked if we could arrange a meeting and whilst agreeing, he dropped into conversation that the Head of Planning would be retiring and a couple of months....and so, we put everything on pause. Why go into meetings and apply when you know there's already a big 'No' from the approver? Although we were confident and were fully prepared to go to appeal on this, we didn't want to do that.

We appointed a new architect for the project, and worked up more detail for the application. We met the planning officer and someone from planning strategy, where I showed them a scale model of our plans, as well as discussed the Local Plan and why I thought our plans would comply. They were really helpful and interested - I do think it helped that I knew their Local Plan document inside out and could even point them to section and pages without opening it! So the signs from them were good - so we carried on. 

We then went to the next round of design and developed it into the design we finally went with. Another meeting with planning went well, the Head of Planning had retired and the new man was there (Although the planning officer never actually told us if the boss supported the idea). 

In December we submitted our plans, along with a detailed Design Statement. This document went into a lot of detail about the thinking behind our plans, how we thought it was justified, benefits and so on.  It meant that anyone who didn't know about the project had a really good insight into our thinking without having spoken to us. It also gave a subtle sign that we were serious about this and had put in a lot of time, effort and thought, therefore a simple refusal would not be the end of it. 

The wait was excruciating! Firstly, there was the 21 day window from comments from members of the public. We had a letter from Roads - they had no issue. We had a letter from Environmental Services - no issue. Letter from Scottish Natural Heritage -- no comment.

So far,so good. The consultation period ended and we thought we just had to wait, but then it was advertised in the paper, which was another 21 day wait. No reponses. The consultation closed. The application was showing online as 'Pending consideration'....everyday, and in fact, almost every hour we checked online to see if the status had changed. The deadline was 11th February for a decision. 

In the last week, it changed to 'Pending Decision'. I was a waste of space in work to be honest. Although all the signs were good, we never took it for granted and had paused all other work until we got a decision. 

The decision target date drew closer...ir was due on Wednesday. I phoned planning on Monday and was told they just had to get approval from the Head of Planning, but the report was 'as we discussed' (i.e the planning officer supported it). 

Tick, tock....I kid you not, the wait was unbearable. I had  the application page bookmarked at work and kept refreshing the page. Eventually, on the Tuesday, it pinged over and there it was:

'Approved subject to conditions'

The relief!!! Our gamble had paid off. The conditions were not even onerous - a contamination survey and presentation of material prior to commencing work. It felt like a huge  weight off, although  as we chewed over it, really, it would have taken something out of the ordinary for it to be refused. We'd engaged with planning in a text book manner. We'd spoken on the phone, met them twice, taken on board their feedback and suggestions (incidentally, planning suggested that Roads would want to see the first 2 metres of the driveway tarmac'd and a drain across the entrance, which we did. The comments from roads noted it and said they were satisfied).

So what will our house look like? Here are some 3D images. 

  

So, now we have planning , we have some key activities. 

• Clear the site ready for build. 
• Excavate the garage to find out what the soil is like and if there are any foundations (we are building the garage in the old filter bed near the road)
• Empty the tanks of sludge
• Complete detailed drawings for Building Warrant
• Complete more detailed costings for the project
• Start the process of getting water and electricity onsite
• Loads more!

So, there we go. We have planning permission and now we're ready to get ready to build!

The beginning of our Self Build journey

Thanks for visiting our new blog, which aims to record the progress of our house build.  We are Jamie and Craig, a married couple who like all sorts of random things. We have a VW campervan, like cooking, travelling and making the most of everyday, night and weekend when we are not working. We live in Gourock in a small 1-bed flat by the River Clyde.

Jamie (left) and Craig

This first post will give a little background to how we started this thing. 

January 2013 started well - whilst looking through rightmove, I (Jamie) spotted an old barn for sale at what appeared to be a good price near West Kilbride. Although Craig and I had discussed building a house one day, we'd never really done anything about it. In fact, we'd never done anything at all. However, within a week, we had viewed, and fallen in love with  this old barn. What a find! Why didn't anyone else buy it?

Glenhead Farm - the Barn

I could write a whole blog just about this, but will try summarise. The barn was part of a farm, however the farm house itself had been sold 20years prior, but the outbuildings and surrounding land retained. 

We were buying what was the stable/hayloft with an acre of land and two large outbuildings - perfect for me to keep my cars in! The barn had planning permission, although there were some conditions around upgrading the road access. This was burdensome, but didn't put us off. To cut a long story short - when the farm house was sold, the purchaser was promised first refusal on the barn. The purchaser and seller fell out in the intervening 20 years, and also , the sellers company went bust. 

The fall out was the issue - the owners of the farmhouse wanted 'our' barn, They were determined that they had a legal right to it, and if it was sold to someone else, they would go to court. Having met the lady a few times, I believed she would have gone, even though she would probably have lost. As time went on, the term 'bitch of hell' kept coming to mind. There has been an access dispute to the courtyard at the back of the barn that had been to court....we were told the water supply wasn't good enough....all sorts of things kept being dropped in our ears from this woman. Strangely, when we made it clear we would be buying, grafitti appeared on the bridge...bizarre!

We ended up pulling out completely. It had cost us a small fortune in legal fees, architects drawings (we had to amend the original plans because they were...rotten), mortgage fees, loan interest, you name it. 

Our barn would have looked something like this

This was now July 2013 and we had to start again. We looked, and looked. Lots of overpriced plots, plots too far away, plots with no redeeming features. There was a disused water tank at auction, but there was no way we'd get planning permission. 

And so we gave up for the time being. Even looked at some houses. 

But...the bug never goes away, and we'd caught that bug. Craig had always been keen on the water tank idea, but I didn't think we'd get permission, so despite it being relatively cheap, wasn't worth it. 

But when you're running out of options and champing at the bit, something has to give. We went and had another look at it. 

Craig always liked it, and it started to grow on me. Half an acre of land...in the countryside, near a town, near a train station. Wildlife galore. Hmmm....So then I started reading the North Ayrshire Local Development Plan, all 90+ pages of it...and from that plan, I started to form a plan. I reckoned planning permission might just be possible. I read some more, I contacted Planning Aid Scotland, I read all the planning documentation I could find for the area. I looked for other water tanks that had been converted. I spoke to planning (who said no!), but I had a plan for that too.

We contacted the auction houses that had previously marketed the tanks. They were totally unhelpful, even although I told them that if they were able to arrange a sale, they would get the commission. And so, I contacted the Land Register of Scotland. They gave me the names of the two owners and from there, google was my friend. I did various cross references until I was certain I had found one of the owners. I contacted him and he was still keen to sell. I kept my cards close to my chest - I didn't want anyone else realising that planning permission was a possibility. 

Eventually, we bought it. It was ours. It had no planning permission, and might end up being a white elephant, but we both decided it was a risk worth taking. 

And so, on July 11th, Craig's birthday, we became owners of half an acre of heaven. With a lot  of water in it!

So the next step now we'd bought it was to get planning permission. Permission had been refused for the site previously and it was in an area designated 'Sensitive Countryside'. So it was going to be easy, yes?!

Next update will tell all!