Its all a question of scale......

Having been pleased that at long last the planning application had been submitted for approval, I happened to be scanning the plans submitted to the council (posted by the council on a web site for all to see - but we'd not been sent the very latest version by our architect). All looked good until I noticed that the plan of our house that had been superimposed on the plot outline was to the wrong scale. The house had been made to appear nearly twice the size it actually is! Now given that we had been playing up the fact that it was smaller than the previously approved design, I was very concerned that lay people, such as the parish council, who would review the plans would perhaps think it too large for the plot without checking the detailed drawings that accompany the submission.

A call to our architect produced - "I'll look at at" he said. A while later he called back - "As far as I can see its correct" he said. When I pressed him he said that if it was wrong then the copy of the site plan he had used "must have been scaled up incorrectly". He therefore agreed to redo the plot layout with the correctly sized house and resubmit to the council. However, I knew that the Parish Council meeting was taking place early next week and that the Council were unlikely to get the revised site plan out to them in time.

So, a hunt on the internet (what did we do before this was available?) and the address of the clerk to the Parish Council was found. A quick, apologetic letter and a correctly scaled plan (produced by me) was hand delivered this morning to home of the clerk to the parish council. Hopefully, they will give us the nod at their meeting.

It does beg a question though - Why should I be checking up on something as basic as the scale of a drawing from a professional architect? It really isn't good enough and I suspect we will be looking for some fresh input from another source in the very near future.

Do It Yourself man - Clifton

A bit of Brookvale genealogy - farming, farming and more farming.

I've been doing a bit of research on the cottages at Brookvale, and although a little superficial, it does give a glimpse of what life was about in the latter part of the 19th century.

The cottages were built from 1872 and the first record of their occupants is the 1881 census. This shows that Henry and Elizabeth Payne Lived at Number 1, with their three daughters. Henry, unsurprisingly was an agricultural labourer, whilst his wife and two of the daughters (the youngest being 12) were straw plaiters - probably making hats for the local hat industry. The youngest daughter Zilpath was eight and a "scholar".

Next door at number 2, things were altogether a tad more crowded as Isaac and Sophia Jenkins lived there with their 6 children. Isaac follwed the obvious trade of agricultural labourer, with Sophia and their eldest daughter Anne being straw plaiters - as next door. Three of the five sons were agricultural labourers too, the youngest, William being only 14.

What a change in 1891 - Henry and Elizabeth Payne now lived alone, and Isaac and Sophy (not Sophia) Jenkins had only a granddaughter for company. One hopes that her name - Beatrice Rainbow brought a little colour into her life - but what of her parents? And how far away did the children go? More research may show us.

Two more of the cottages were shown as occupied in 1891, but not which numbers. The census shows George Nottingham (widower) 58, agricultural labourer a solitary occupant in one house, and John Millard 76, late coachman gardner in another. I've managed to track the Millard family back to 1871, before Brookvale Cottages were built, at which time the family lived in the "Village" Upper Stondon. I assume this to be the area around the church. John and his wife Sarah are shown as having three children at home, whilst another Millard, Lucy, is shown as living at The Rectory - I assume in service to the local vicar.

As its a very small community I would like to try and build up a picture of the village and track its families. Something for the winter perhaps?

"Who do you think you are" of Clifton

One step forward, one step back....

Rights of way are rather complex things as we are finding out. The driveway to Brookvale had access rights granted to the owners of the existing 5 cottages when they were sold off in 1992. Trouble is that the person that granted those rights didn't actually own the land over which the driveway runs. Instead it is claimed that the land belongs to a farmer at a nearby farm. So, in theory, the owners of the 5 cottages have no legal access rights anyway!

However, the driveway land isn't registered so its impossible to find out for sure if he does own. Another fact compounding matters is that someone else is trying to get access rights to the field beyond our plot, with the hope that they might develop that area for housing. That person seems to have some influence over the farmer who reputedly owns the land, so we have a conflict of interests - we want declared access rights, but the developer-to-be wants some of our land to enable an 8 metre wide road to be created (minimum size that the council will allow for a development). Obviously, we don't want any houses built in the field, although the local development plan stipulates that nothing will be developed there until at least 2060, so there's not much chance anyway. However, at present the developer-to-be is suggesting that he will stop us using the drive, even though he is not the owner of the land. Nice man!

After much research we believe that the driveway land and the field beyond may have been sold to the farmer without much in the way of legal involvement, and even if there are title deeds it is unlikely that they would be very specific about access to the general area of Brookvale, so giving us the ability to access our plot by default. Legal precedents seem to suggest that a court would uphold our right of access if it did go legal anyway, so feeling less concerned thatn a couple of days ago.

Our plan B is that we have purchased a strip of land that runs from the road to our plot and parallel to the existing drive such that as a last resort we can put in a new access drive to 6 Brookvale.

Trainee land registry expert from Clifton

Something's definately happening!

The wheels may grind exceedingly slow, but eventually they start to move. It appears that although our planning application has not been shown as registered last week, the owners' of the cottages next to our "plot" at Brookvale have received planning notices in the post today.

We had decided a couple of weeks ago to produce a double sided newsletter which introduced us to our "neighbours to be", and included copies of the elevations of the house, and a plan of the siting of the house on the plot. This newsletter has gone down very well apparently and we've been promised at least one letter of support. Hopefully, we won't get any moans from the other residents!

More cheerful of Clifton

Something's happening - I think

Having checked the council's weekly list of planning applications received, ours is not on the list. However, the cheque that accompanied the planning application has been cashed (hooray for on-line banking). So, something is happening, but who knows exactly what. Oh to live in "Council World" - its like a parallel universe where reality is "not as we know it Jim" to use that well known Star Trek quote!

Slightly less miffed of Clifton

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Not a good week. Having checked the local council's list of new planning applications over the last 3 weeks and not found ours, we received a letter from our architect telling us that it "appeared" we needed to produce and complete a deed in respect of the 106 Agreement. This was a mechanism designed to ensure that big developers provided suitable facilities and amenities. However, this agreement has now been adopted by almost every council and in this area applies to every new build, even a single house. The effect of the agreement is to add a charge on to each new build - in theory to contribute to local area facilities. A 3 bedroomed house attracts a 106 charge of over £12,000!

On telephoning our architect he seemed a little vague as to whether this deed had to accompany the planning application before it could be registered, but assured me that our application had been submitted. He suggested that I telephone the council to find out the exact position.

Having pondered why I employed a dog and was expected to bark myself, I did what was needed and arranged to visit the council to see a duty planning officer. Despite the fact that the planning officer knew little about the niceties of the 106 Agreement, a quick visit to their legal department produced the answer - the 106 Agreement did not have to accompany the planning application, and I was advised that the 106 was not on the checklist of things required with a planning application - something our architect should have known.

The planning officer then asked me if I had a reference for the planning application as we should have received this as a form of receipt. As we hadn't received anything the planning officer checked on new applications, and, ours had not been received.

So, the net result of my visit was a rather vague requirement to copy the sample Deed of Covenant that made the 106 Agreement a binding legal charge, and the discovery that there were further charges associated with this - the costs for my solicitor to draw up the document, and amend it if it didn't measure up to the council's requirements, a charge of £310 levied by the council to cover their "reasonable" legal costs, and a charge of £175 as a monitoring fee for the council.

Anyway, a quick call to my solicitor and a trip to him with the pro-forma deed document saw that under way. Next, a call to our architect....

I got the impression when I spoke to him earlier in the day that he wasn't that convinced when he said the application had been submitted. When I told him (late Friday afternoon) that I was a very unhappy bunny, he became rather defensive and even less sure of his facts. Apparently, he couldn't tell me much because his secretary had dealt with it, but he was sure she had delivered the planning application in person. A check of "our file" produced no tangible evidence of anything useful and the response that we would have to wait until Monday when his secretary would be in the office next.

So, 4 weeks have been wasted since the last post when the plans and design statement were drawn up and should have been submitted.

Despite quite liking the architect as a person, I am becoming concerned about his lack of attention to detail. Prior to the confusion over the planning application, changes that we had requested to the plans he had drawn up had not been correctly reproduced in the subsequent iteration, despite giving detailed notes, or indeed revised drawings. Hmmm, time for a change perhaps?

Lets's see what Monday brings.

Very Unhappy of Clifton