But will we get permission to do it?
As the proposed property was completely different to any other house in the neighbourhood, and the garage extended beyond all other established building lines, we were unsure as to its liklihood for success........but Chris was quietly confident. The application was sent to the Local Authority, who received it on 14th November 2008, but it had to be re-submitted a few days later as the words 'and formation of a new vehicle access', had not been included in the application title.
The application was logged in the NCDC register as number 2008/02182.
Meanwhile, as it was now November 2008, and it had been a few weeks since I had heard anything from A4, I rang to inquire what progress had been made. To my surprise Clare told me that the application had been lodged with NCDC. I fully expected to have been copied with the proposal beforehand, and was unhappy that I had not. I asked Clare for a copy of plans and enclosures, which she supplied within a day or so. On checking I found many errors which could have been easily corrected, such as 'white UPVC windows and doors' which were detailed in the schedule, but to my amazement a new site plan had been drawn (2008/2202/01A). I had asked Chris to position the building centrally on the plot, but apparently this new plan had been drawn by the office Draughtsman as he was advised to do so...but by whom? This now positioned the house with less space down the East side where it would be more 'usable' and put extra space down the West side bordering Trevissick, where it would have little benefit to us. I believe this was done as a result of office chat about likely objections, but was not communicated to us. Chris recommended that we leave the site plan as it was, and told us that the other details were not material to the planning permission and need not be altered, which we accepted.
As soon as we had the plans to hand, we invited our neighbours from Trevissick to have a view, including the Sketch-up 3D images I was able to display for them on my PC, which I subsequently emailed to them. They were grateful for being kept up to date, but clearly were not happy. Within a short period of time we were made aware of objections from that quarter, mainly based on the reduction of light to their property, but also wanting the house moved Northwards to increase privacy due to the balcony overlooking their patio. In my opinion, they had purchased the property whilst the original outline planning was in place, so should not have been surprised by the construction eventually going ahead.
2008/2202/01A
The following week, we had a visit from the Case Officer, Samantha Hewitt. She walked around the site, we chatted about the project, and I offered to show her the representations I had produced on Sketch-up. She was pleased to accept the offer, and she was so interested in it, that she asked for 2D images to accompany the application which we sent on to her and were added to the application pack.
In order to placate the neighbours concerns I suggested to Chris that we omit the West 'ear' completely, replace with obscure glass windows, and have 1.8m obsure glass screens either side of the balcony. In truth, unlike the 'East ear' which gave full benefit to the study, the 'West ear' had little benefit as it spanned two floors, and when you considered it fully, it produced odd shaped niches which in reality had no benefit at all. Chris re-draughted the plan as 2008/2202/02A.
Whilst talking to Sam Hewitt, it was clear that she felt that the variety of dwellings in the area already formed an eclectic mix, and a new dwelling 'of its time' would certainly not detract from the appearance of the locality. Thankfully her thoughts were borne out when, on 13th January 2009, we were given Planning Consent.
We now had three years to sell Arlington, and commence work on the new house.
They say....'Timing is Everything'.......well our timing was pretty poor. We put Arlington on the market exactly at the wrong time, with the country in recession due to the global credit crunch. This had forced the banks to tighten up on their lending conditions and as a consequence, the housing market was very depressed.
Anyway, with the consent given, I could now properly separate off the site with walls and fencing, and in truth this would need to be done before a sale could progress, so I set to it!
