You’ve probably heard about the Tiny House movement, but how about Tiny Forests?

These hit the UK national news recently, with a piece on the BBC’s news website, but to be honest it’s a new one on me!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/stories-56003562 | https://earthwatch.org.uk/get-involved/tiny-forests

We’ve mentioned before on our Facebook page the perhaps surprising fact that some urban areas of the UK beat some of our rural landscapes for tree cover – particularly in areas of intensive agriculture – and Tiny forests would also seem to add the opportunity to massively enhance biodiversity in urban and suburban environments.

The concept also raises important questions about landscape architecture, urban design, and even the way we use our private gardens. The traditional approach prioritises occupier amenity over ecology and environment, with neatly trimmed lawns and heavily-managed planting of non-native species, and woe betide any neighbour who doesn’t cut their grass every Sunday morning in summer.

One of the pillar’s of Boris’ recent Planning White Paper was a proposal for ‘tree lined streets’. Whilst this sounds laudable and lovely in principle, it is fraught with practical issues (highways visibility and safety, impact on below-ground services, management costs and commuted sums for ‘adoption’ of the trees by already financially over-stretched Highways Authorities). Perhaps a better solution in some cases would be the incorporation of unmanaged buffer zones/wildlife corridors along the back of residential gardens on new developments, with the increased privacy and ecological benefit that these would offer being allowed to offset a reduction in the size of managed rear gardens for the direct amenity of human residents?

It would take a major shift in thinking for the Hyacinth Bouquets amongst us, but maybe we need to stand back and think about the limited amenity use many of us put our gardens to, versus the potential ecological benefits of allowing partial ‘re-wilding’ of the domestic landscape?

Introduction of proposed changes to Building Regulations
(Parts L and F – Energy Efficiency and Ventilation)

We’re slightly late posting this news, simply because we’ve been too busy to write blog posts, but the English Government has finally published a definite time line for introduction of revised Building Regulations moving toward the Future Homes Standard, which aims to make new homes ‘zero carbon ready’ by 2025.

The first step is an ‘interim uplift’ to Part L of the Building Regulations, requiring a 31% reduction in carbon emissions, compared to current Regulations. The timeframe for introduction of these changes has now been confirmed:

• Consultation drafts of the revised approved documents have been published and final versions will be published in December of this year.
• The new Approved Documents will come into force in June 2022.
• Transitional arrangements will be tougher than usual, applying to individual homes (not whole developments) and being limited to 1 year.

This means that any new building registered under current Regulations will need to commence construction before June 2022 and will need to be completed by June 2023, otherwise it will need to be upgraded to meet the new standards.

The definition of ‘building’ means that this will apply to a detached house, semis or a row of terrace houses, or blocks of flats.

As many will already be aware, the upgrade in the Regulations will be accompanied by a shift in the way carbon emissions are calculated, such that it will favour the use of electricity for heating much more strongly than the previous methodology – the justification for this being that much more of our electricity is now being generated by sustainable sources than it was when the old version of the SAP calculation methodology was written. This will mark the beginning of the end for fossil fuel boilers, and the ascendancy of heat pumps as the ‘normal’ method of heating our nation’s homes.

It was originally anticipated that the Fabric Energy Efficiency element of the requirements was set to be deleted – meaning, in essence, that it wouldn’t have much mattered how much energy your building used, provided that energy was generated by low or zero-carbon sources. It now looks like this is NOT going to be the case, however. The Fabric Energy Efficiency requirement is likely not only to be saved, but looks set to be made 15% tougher than at present – though final confirmation of this will need to wait for the publication of the new Approved Documents in December.

Look out for further detail and commentary on the forthcoming changes in our blog over this summer.

Consultation drafts of the Approved Documents can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/building-regulations-approved-documents-l-f-and-overheating-consultation-version

And the overall Government response to the Future Homes Standard consultation  is available to read here:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/956094/Government_response_to_Future_Homes_Standard_consultation.pdf

More grumbles are reaching our ears about the length of time Local Planning Authorities are taking to validate Planning applications at present.

Now while we all have some sympathy with the internal communication difficulties, and therefore delays, being imposed by Covid, I suspect that poor management is turning this into a vicious circle that will be costing the building economy a huge amount of time and money, overall.

Planning applications have ‘statutory’ determination periods that in theory mean that LPA’s are obliged to determine applications within fixed periods – 13 weeks for major applications, 8 weeks for most other stuff. The problem is that the clock starts ticking on these determination periods from the day after a VALID application is RECEIVED… so if an LPA takes 4 weeks to validate it, it halves the time their Officers have to actually determine the application and effectively makes it impossible, with minor applications like householder extensions, because of the periods required to advertise and consult upon the application.

As a result, there is clear evidence (though obviously denied by individual LPA’s) that the administrative staff dealing with the validation process are doing their utmost to find problems with applications, in order that they can claim they are ‘invalid’, thus buying their Officers more time on processing periods.

The evidence is that well over 50% of all applications are rejected as invalid upon first submission – many for entirely trivial reasons – and the cumulative time and effort battling a way through this process must be costing the industry an enormous amount in total. There used to be published national guidance encouraging LPA’s to adopt a more flexible approach to the validation process (link: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/7727/1505220.pdf ), but astonishingly, this has now been withdrawn and replaced by guidance stipulating a much more rigid and buereacratic approach (link: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/making-an-application#validation-of-an-application )

If the Government wants to speed up the Planning process, they’d be well-advised to address some of the basic bureaucratic bottlenecks, before adding further complexity and confusion with their endless stream of amendments to Permitted Development rights.

In the meanwhile: the trick to achieving first time validation is careful scrutiny of your LPA’s Local Validation Requirements. Even we don’t get it right every time (we don’t think there’s an Architect or Planning Consultant out there who does!) , but we manage first-time validation of our applications a lot more often than not, so contact us if you need advice on the application package required for your particular proposal.

• 

• 

(also file under: don’t believe everything you read on the internet and the problem with loopholes is that you can hang yourself with them).

Garden room ‘home offices’ are flavour of the month at the moment, with still no end seemingly in sight for Covid lockdown measures.

Almost every manufacturer of off-the-shelf garden rooms will tell you that their designs are compliant with Permitted Development rules, and that you don’t need permission for them.

There are ALL SORTS of potential trip hazards, here, not least that there are confusing differences between the exemptions for Planning and those for Building Regulations, but we’ve just had an example drawn to our attention of another one that often gets missed.

The question was how you measure the heights of such buildings and in THIS CASE (hyperlink to: https://logcabins.co.uk/how-to-measure-the-height-of-a-log-cabin/) the manufacturer is quite right in that the rules say that on sloping ground you’re allowed to measure from the highest pre-existing ground level immediately adjacent to the building.

What they’ve failed to spot is that there is a separate, quite clear rule saying that no outbuilding – no matter what overall height – is acceptable as ‘Permitted Development’ where it would ‘include the construction or provision of a verandah, balcony or raised platform”.

Don’t take anything you’re told by manufacturers and suppliers of these buildings as Gospel truth and before spending £thousands on such a builing, we’d urge you to talk to us about checking your precise circumstances and requirements, and obtaining a ‘Certificate of Lawfulness’  if necessary, to avoid problems further down the line.

News this week that Dudley Council had tried to take enforcement action against 70-year-old Mr Eddie Solly, for a mural painted on his garage door.

The interesting thing in Planning terms is that their justification for this was that they claimed the work breached Permitted Development rights because it was ‘an unauthorised advertisement larger than 0.3m²’.

It’s not the first time that this justification has been used in such enforcement action: Bridgend Council in Wales took action earlier this year against a mural commemorating the flooding of Tryweryn village to create a reservoir.

Meanwhile, of course, Belfast tolerates murals that promote extremist political ideologies (on both sides) that are downright offensive to many people, and several authorities have spent public money protecting work by the graffiti artist ‘Banksy’.  

It all raises the question of where art stops, and advertising begins, particularly since much art has a political or social point to make… and is the Planning system an appropriate means of censorship?

On a more prosaic note, are the advertising agencies missing a trick by not using ‘teaser’ campaigns of subtly branded unauthorised street art for commercial ends?

The Town and Country Planning Act defines an ‘advertisement’ as:

“any word, letter, model, sign, placard, board, notice, awning, blind, device or representation, whether illuminated or not, in the nature of, and employed wholly or partly for the purposes of, advertisement, announcement or direction…”

Related regulations clarify that the definition does not include ‘anything employed wholly as a memorial’ (which surely should have exempted the Tryweryn village mural?) and the English version of the Regulations permits ‘a placard or other object borne by an individual or animal’, which could bring a whole new meaning to the ‘branding’ of cattle…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-55275563

#advertisment planning rules #planning censorship #banksy #murals

Loft Condensation

It’s that time of year again, folks!

Cool, damp autumn air – possibly combined with the fact that many people will soon be making their annual trip up to the loft to dig out Christmas decorations – means that November and December are when most of us will spot loft condensation.

This is a growing problem with increased insulation levels, so be particularly careful if you live in a modern, new-build house, or if you’ve recently added extra insulation to your loft.

Here’s what you need to know….

What’s the problem?

If you have a ‘cold’ roof – what we call a traditional loft space with insulation at ceiling level and an unheated, uninsulated space above it – condensation can form that soaks into the insulation. In serious cases, it can be bad enough to stain ceilings, cause roof timbers to rot and mould to grow on anything stored in the loft.

Why does it happen?

 Warm air can hold more moisture than cold air – that’s why we get a dewfall at night as the air cools off after the sun has gone down.  The same thing can happen in your loft, usually causing moisture to collect on the underside of the roofing felt/roof membrane and to drip off onto the insulation below, or to condense within the insulation itself. If you have absorbent loft insulation – like the common glassfibre quilt – this moisture soaks in and over a period of days or weeks gradually saturates the insulation.

Where does the moisture come from?

Two places, mainly:

• Traditionally, the problem is warm, moist air from inside the house leaking into the loft space. As it cooled on its way out – or if it came into contact with cold pipework or water tanks – the water vapour we’ve added to the air in our homes from cooking, bathing, laundry and even breathing can condense out as liquid moisture.

• In recent years, we’ve unwittingly added another problem: the extra insulation in our lofts means that there’s not as much heat leaking from the house below as there used to be. The air cools off at night so that it’s barely any warmer than the air outside, and a dew falls inside our loft, just like it does on the lawn!

There can also be more subtle and complicated effects, where the breeze flowing over the roof causes an invisible low-pressure ‘bubble’ to form over the lee slope of the roof, a bit like a very crude aeroplane wing. This low pressure causes cooling, which can increase condensation. On an aeroplane, it’s one of the reasons we see ‘con-trails’ (condensation trails) forming behind high-flying jet airliners. In your loft, you’ll see drips of water forming on the underside of the roof slope.

How do I check it?

This time of year – October through to December – is the worst period for loft condensation, so now is the time to keep an eye on things.

Ideally, go up into your loft first thing on a cool morning, before the sun has had chance to warm things up, and look for visible condensation (beads of moisture)  on the underside of the roof slope, or on any exposed pipework or water tanks.

Prod your hand about in the loft insulation, to check if it feels damp.

How can I fix it?

This can be a bit trickier: first you’ve got to figure out what the source is (and bear in mind that sometimes there can be more than one!).

If it’s the ‘traditional’ source of warm air leaking out of the house, then the obvious solution is to stop those leaks – and the good news (kind of) is that you need to be doing this whatever the cause of your loft condensation, so it’s always a good place to start.

Make sure your loft hatch is well sealed and insulated, and that there are no unsealed penetrations through the ceiling around pipes, wiring or recessed downlights. The latter are a particular problem these days, especially since they’re often used over bathrooms or en suites, where internal moisture levels are particularly high. If you have recessed downlights, make sure they use a sealed box or hood as shown below (but it should be noted that standard ‘fire hoods’ are not likely to be suitable)

Next, make sure that all pipes and water tanks are properly lagged, so that moist air isn’t coming into contact with cold surfaces on plumbing.

Finally, make sure that your loft is properly ventilated.  Most lofts with traditional roofing felt should be ventilated at the eaves, and you need to make sure that the air paths form these vents are not obstructed by insulation. Some modern roofs use vapour permeable roof membranes instead of traditional roofing felt, and theoretically these don’t need eaves ventilation (though the membrane can’t always cope in practice). If you’re not sure what your roof is, speak to an expert.

Storing things in your loft is not really a good idea and can also restrict airflow, but if you must do it, keep it to a minimum, and keep the stored items in the middle with plenty of space for airflow around them.

Even when you’ve done all that, if your loft is heavily insulated you may find that you still have problems. If you reach this point, it’s time to call the experts in, because some solutions that fix one problem will cause or exacerbate another… for example in some circumstances, increasing the ventilation levels will only make that aerodynamic cooling effect we mentioned earlier worse, because you’re just feeding an endless supply of damp air onto a surface that’s been cooled by the low pressure bubble created by the airflow over it!

The ultimate issue is that we’re now pushing the very limits of what will work in terms of insulation levels, on traditional ‘cold’ roof design, and as we push for ever more energy-efficient buildings, the future is likely to see a change to ‘warm’ roof construction (where there is no unheated, uninsulated loft space)… but that requires entirely different detailing and is not cheap or easy to apply to an existing roof.

Bats have been high on the agenda with a couple of our projects this week, which reminds us that the season for ecology surveys of several species is coming to an end for this year:  bats, dormice, reptiles and even white-clawed crayfish are all getting ready to batten down the hatches for winter.

This can be a problem for Planning, as Local Authorities often aren’t willing to take a decision on applications where ecology might be important, without detailed survey reports.

Sometimes it’s possible to overcome these issues,  either by convincing the Local Authority that there’s no need for a survey in a specific case – as we managed on one of our recent applications – or by arranging something called an ‘Extended Phase 1 Habitat Survey’ as part of a ‘Preliminary Ecological Appraisal’ (PEA). The latter (which can be undertaken all year round) can often persuade the Planners that that at least have enough information to take a decision on an application, leaving more detailed survey work and/or assessment of mitigation measures for later, before actual construction work starts on site.

Let us know if you’ve got a project where wee beasties might be a stumbling block!

Important news for Barn Conversions

Permitted Development means that you can build stuff without Planning Permission, right?

WRONG when it’s Prior Approval, such as Class Q, larger domestic extensions, or the Government’s new Class AA for upward extensions (among others). For those unfamiliar, Class Q is the Permitted Development right to convert redundant agricultural buildings into dwellings, much beloved of self-builders who want to undertake barn conversions.

Our Planning Director, Kelly, has drawn my attention to a recent appeal decision that moves the goalposts quite a bit on this: Bradford City Council refused a ‘prior approval’ on a barn in the heart of Bronte country, up on the moors near Keighley, essentially because they felt that the location was ‘undesirable’ for a dwelling, and this decision has been upheld at appeal.

Details can be seen under application ref. 20/01389/PAR on Bradford Council’s website:

https://planning.bradford.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=Q8TJDCDH0CY00

On these sorts of development you still need to make an application to your Local Authority before you start work. In theory, they should be measuring your proposal against fixed criteria, and if you meet those criteria, the go-ahead should be automatic. On Class Q, these criteria are mainly centred around size limits and the practical suitability of the building for conversion.

But among the Prior Approval criteria has always been the condition that the conversion should not be allowed where ‘the location and siting of the building makes it… impractical or undesirable…”.

It’s usually fairly easy to judge ‘impractical’ against technical criteria, but what about ‘undesirable’?

Class Q has always been somewhat at odds with broader Planning Policy, because by its very nature it tends to permit the creation of new dwellings in open countryside, outside settlement boundaries and in locations that the Planning system regards as ‘unsustainable’. For this reason, it’s always been tacitly accepted that Class Q conversions were acceptable even in locations that would be viewed as ‘undesirable’ under the normal scope of national Planning Policy.

In the Bradford City Council case, the appeals inspector has upheld the Authority’s refusal, essentially on the grounds that the light spill and paraphernalia associated with domestic use (parked cars, garden furniture and formal planting) would have an unwelcome ‘urbanising’ effect on the landscape.

This is a disquieting judgement for a number of reasons:

• There are already very strict criteria in place under Class Q to limit the size of the domestic curtilage associated with such buildings.
• In addition, Class Q does not afford normal domestic Permitted Development rights for extensions or outbuildings.
• The whole of Class Q is inapplicable to buildings situated on land protected by article 2(3) designation (ie. national parks, AONB’s, conservation areas, The Broads of a World Heritage site).

Taken together, these criteria in and of themselves should be considered to give adequate protection to constrain landscape impact to acceptable levels: that’s what these specific restrictions are there for.

Beyond that, the fells above Keighley are familiar to me from my youth and ironically one of the things that actually characterises the landscape is the presence of individual, very isolated dwellings. You might, indeed, say that it is precisely what these moors are most famous for: the Keighley applications site lies literally a couple of miles directly North of Haworth, home to both the Bronte Sisters and Top Withens, the farmhouse said to be the inspiration for Wuthering Heights in the novel of the same name.

When one is walking upon these fells – as I did so much when I was younger – it is often the counterpoint of such small and isolated habitations against the surrounding openness that acts to highlight the landscape’s scale and grandeur.

It begs the question how fit for purpose our Planning system is, when it prevents precisely the sort of development that creates the character of a landscape it is seeking to protect.

As if these issues weren’t enough, the actual landscape setting of the Keighley application building is such that the prominence of the development would be rather restricted.

Whilst certainly the building can be seen from the road, Tarn Lane, it is set at the head of a steep valley (known as a ‘Clough’ in this part of Yorkshire), with the proposed curtilage behind and below the building itself and screened from the south by a stand of trees.

Even if landscape impact is accepted as representing a measure by which Class Q can be refused – a dangerous precedent, where the technical criteria can be said to offer sufficient protection already – it is questionable whether this particular application should have been refused on such grounds.

Now that we’re aware of this decision, there are ways we can mitigate the risk of similar judgements in future, however, so if you’re looking at ta Class Q application, contact us to discuss how we can help.

It’s not often that Planning Applications make the local newspapers for positive reasons, but we managed it with one of our Norfolk clients this week:

https://www.lynnnews.co.uk/news/plans-drawn-up-for-new-luxury-glamping-site-in-north-norfolk-9072525/

Caroline Fowler is hoping to open a new glamping business with the unusual distinction that it can cater for those people for whom their horse or pony is part of the family.

Alongside a selection of glamping pods, safari tents and a geodesic ‘stargazer’ dome with transparent roof (and we do get some lovely starlit and moonlit nights, here in deepest, darkest Norfolk) is the facility to cater for visitors equine companions – something quite unique in my experience! With Holkam Hall Bay (holiday destination for Her Majesty’s Household Cavalry each year) just a short hack out from the site, it really ought to offer something special.

We’re well used (sadly) to dealing with knee-jerk objections from NIMBY’s, so it would be nice in this instance to receive a few positive public comments instead. If you think it’s a good idea and would like to support Caroline by saying so, please spend a few moments to offer a supporting comment on the following link to the application:

https://online.west-norfolk.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=makeComment&keyVal=PQL72NIVG7U00