How We Approached Dealing With The Planning Authority

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bulworthy project	How We Approached Dealing With The Planning Authority Hello We haven't been on here for a while because we've been lost in Facebook, but we thought that this may be something of interest to this forum. Not sure if this is the right section for this. We've written a little piece about how we dealt with the planning authority when applying for permission to live in the woods. It's something people often ask about. This is not about the law but about a philosophy that certainly worked for us. It would be interesting to hear other peoples experiences of the system. The piece we've written is at: www.bulworthyproject.org.uk/planning.html Do let us know what you think.
dpack	hello again ,that is some of the most sensible advice on such matters i have ever seen. i hope all goes well in the future. ps face book is satan's intel officer
bulworthy project	Thanks Dpack P.S. I only use facebook to save satan from having to put too much effort and therefore taxpayers money into spying on me.
sean	Really good article.
dpack	Thanks Dpack P.S. I only use facebook to save satan from having to put too much effort and therefore taxpayers money into spying on me.

at least god knows everything and reports directly to mossad which saves no end of taxpayer expense

Lorrainelovesplants

That really is a good article.

Mistress Rose

Useful article. We haven't gone for planning applications in our wood as we don't need to live there. We did see the planning officer many years ago when we had ideas of putting up a shed near the road, and her first words were 'We won't let you even have a container on site'. In fact, she couldn't stop us as it would be temporary, and being a large enough site we could go for permitted development for agricultural/forestry purposes.

We are in a National Park, but it appeared after we had bought the property. Even our management plan has to go through them, which can be tricky as their objectives aren't ours. In fact their objectives are resulting in part of the wood being severely damaged by people walking.

vegplot

Nicely written and some very valid points which we learned along the way to our eventually getting permission. The principle lessons we learned were (our opinion)

a) policy is everything to planning
b) it's not planning's job to educate you, they are arbiters of policy nothing else matters
c) detail everything explain why you are doing things and the reason why they can't be done in any other way
d) their closest ally is Highways. Highways are very blinkered and never look at the whole picture and will have their own policies
e) £5,000 will smooth the planning permission route on Anglesey (as it was then and from the horse's mouth)
d) Parish councils are no longer consulted on local planning issues (Wales)
f) Appeals are fun, if costly, when you hold all the cards. Having a consultant who was ousted from the local council under a corruption purge on your side helps - see e) but £2k cheaper.

bulworthy project

Forgot to say that you can bypass all this with a carefully placed backhander or even better if you went to the same school as the right person/people. Very Happy

Bebo

d) their closest ally is Highways. Highways are very blinkered and never look at the whole picture and will have their own policies

But if you know how they work and you tell them why they've got it wrong they normally back down and don't support the planning authority when they realise their position is weak. tahir

Forgot to say that you can bypass all this with a carefully placed backhander or even better if you went to the same school as the right person/people. Very Happy

Allegedly

Mistress Rose

I hope not. Of course if they did take a back hander, they would never be in a position to dispute anything you did under planning again. You might get into trouble, but they would get into a lot more. Nicky cigreen

interesting article - thanks for sharing

are you under any ongoing clauses - such as having to continue to make charcoal to live in the house? Rob R

d) their closest ally is Highways. Highways are very blinkered and never look at the whole picture and will have their own policies

But if you know how they work and you tell them why they've got it wrong they normally back down and don't support the planning authority when they realise their position is weak.

I have always been surprised how little the highway influences them [Highways]. vegplot

Twice. When planning was first granted and again when we had to re-apply (we needed to move the house location within the bounds) for planning. Bebo

Twice. When planning was first granted and again when we had to re-apply (we needed to move the house location within the bounds) for planning.

I know. I gave your Mrs a bit of advice on how to phrase the response to them regarding your visibility splays, the fact that the site had previously been occupied and that you wouldn't be intensifying vehicle movements above the level they were at previously. vegplot

Oh yes so you did. I had forgotten. Excellent advice it was as well. Thank you. Bebo

Just goes to show that despite what the article claims, not all Consultants that provide advice on planning applications are money-grabbing barstewards that don't care if you get consent or not. Wink

RichardW

Dont think many of you know but we have been having a planning battle re keeping our home. Its over now after just over a year from enforcement to getting a decision in our favor.

We used a planning consultant & a Barrister.

Yes both cost a lot of money but both were worth every penny.

Ok so I still did most of the research (helped keep the cost down to one arm & one leg) but without the consultants guidance as to what I needed & what proofs would help & just as important what to leave out & the Barristers shit hot knowledge of the law we would have lost.
The council on the other hand were incompetent (this is the inspectors view not mine, mine is much worse) to the extreme. Only matched by their barristers lack of experience & knowledge. bulworthy project

It is the "Don't Feed the Parasites" section that has proved to be most controversial. We've had a few negative comments on it, some from planning consultants. We were told at the beginning of the process that we would need an agent or we would definitely not get permission. As our charcoal business does not pay a high hourly wage, we could have afforded to put in many hours of work for each hour that we paid an agent for. We have friends who have paid many thousands of pounds to them. There doesn't seem to be any difference in how likely they are to get planning, whereas there is definitely a big difference in the cost. We didn't come into this with a city bonus or the proceeds of selling a house, maybe if we did we'd feel differently. We're very much part of the DIY culture. We'd rather do the necessary studying ourselves and learn how to play the planning game than pay someone else who has already learned to play it. As we said in the article, this is a philosophy that worked for us. It doesn't mean it will suit everybody. Bebo

I'm not a town planner, I'm a traffic engineer, but my work involves supporting planning applications. For the scale of application that you talk about and providing you have a fairly positive planning authority, DIY is an option. If your planning authority respond adversely and refuse your application, I would suggest that anyone that went to appeal without the support of a specialist planning consultant and / or barrister is a fool.

They have the detailed knowledge of previous case history, precedent and planning law that it is unlikely that most people will ever be able to replicate by their own research. vegplot

I would suggest that anyone that went to appeal without the support of a specialist planning consultant and / or barrister is a fool.

This. The appeals stage is often involves higher levels of technical expertise and legal or policy issues not readily available to the DIYer.

We've been through two appeals one for planning and another for employment tribunal neither of which we would have won had it not been for experts. bulworthy project

Our planning authority changed there attitude to us when they saw our support from and commitment to our local community. At first we were told that we did not have a cats chance in hell and that an enforcement officer would soon come to the woods and evict us. They then told us that our business was not financially viable. When they saw that we had support form our neighbours, the parish council, a number of local businesses that we worked with, a doctor of law and various other experts they changed there tune.

We know people who have won appeals without representation. Maybe they are fools, but they are richer for not having given all there money to agents and barristers. The case law is available for all to find if you look.

We have also met people who have spent vast amounts of money losing cases. A couple that we know spent £35,000 over 7 years and were refused planning for their dwelling (under the same planning authority as us). Clearly they were not foolish enough to go through the planning process without representation, but it did them little good.

If we had had to go to appeal, we would have done it ourselves. Because we made the initial case as well as we did, this was not necessary. vegplot

In our case we felt we didn't have the expertise to not use a consultant. If the appeal failed we would have a expensive remote garden and we wanted to minimise the risk of that happening. bulworthy project

That's fair enough, if we could have afforded it we may have got a consultant. With hindsight we're glad we didn't. I got used to fighting my own legal battles as a full time protestor years ago when it became apparent that apart from 2 firms of solicitors (one in London and one in Sheffield) they didn't care whether I won the case or went to prison. As such I'm used to digging up case law and making a legal argument work. We all have to look at our situation, strengths and weaknesses and decide what is the best course to take. As we said in the piece, this is a philosophy that worked for us.

Pete Bebo

I don't really work on the scale of project that the article considers. However, even on much larger scale development proposals, clients sometimes don't want to hear what they are being told. I'm sometimes asked to advise clients prior to them purchasing a site what I think their chances are of getting an access approved and of being able to deal with their off-site traffic impact. A couple of times I've very bluntly told them they have little chance and if it was my money I wouldn't risk it on purchasing the site, to only find out that they've then gone and sought advice elsewhere until they got a response that they liked.

Both times that has happened they've ended up getting a planning refusal and have had to go back with their development proposals scaled back dramatically, losing money in the process.

You can take a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. bulworthy project

The people we met who had spent £35,000 were told (by the people who took their money) that they had a good case.

On large scale developments you would of course hire experts and would be a fool not to. Lorrainelovesplants

Hello all,
have been rereading this thread, hoping to access Bulworthy Projects linky, but its been removed. Lorrainelovesplants

ah, a quick search of their website revealed what I was looking for. Very Happy

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