Deadline week - will we make it?

Pouring concrete - 16th April

The planning application that was approved on the 18th April 2006 expired after 3 years so we only had until Friday 17th April 2009 to begin the build. Officially, beginning appears to mean having the foundations poured. So, we had to make sure that we had everything finished by Friday night. Not only that, we still had not received approval for the planning conditions relating to materials to be used, landscaping, and boundary treatment. Technically we shouldn't start until this had been received.

With Easter out of the way, the groundworkers resumed on Tuesday by digging out the remaining trenches for the footings. Due to the depth required near the hedgerow (nearly 2 metres), this carried on into Wednesday too. Time was short - just two days to pour the concrete.

Thursday brought a very grey and wet day. I had to travel to Liverpool on business so had no idea what the weather was doing in Bedfordshire. Apart from a couple of short showers, Liverpool had remained mainly dry. I hoped Bedfordshire would be similarly so. It appears that this wasn't the case but the very wet groundworkers had plugged away in the rain and managed to get much of the concrete poured, but not all. Down to the wire then. Just one day to finish the footings.

Arriving home from site on Thursday night I found a letter from the solicitor representing the owner of the driveway. In a very vague and rambling sort of way it ultimately threatened us with an injunction if we didn't "desist from allowing heavy plant to use the driveway". Just for good measure there were various threats about our apparent demands to widen and strengthen the driveway- not sure where that came from although we do have to meet a certain specification for building regulations. All in all it appeared to be quite a desperate letter, written, we knew, not at the behest of the owner of the driveway, but as a result of the rantings of the increasingly manic farm manager - Stuart Rataj. It was quite a relief in a way as it showed that there was little substance to any of the previous claims, and no evidence of any sort offered to prove to whom the drive belonged, or to justify the basis of the claims. After all, if I owned land that someone else was claiming, I would simply produce my deeds to prove my claim. Whatever deeds exist for the driveway, if any, one can only assume that they are very vague and do not support the verbal claims being made.

We decided to ignore it for the time being and prayed for a drier Friday. Our luck held and Friday proved to be overcast but dry. However, I was unable to visit site and had a call Friday afternoon from the Building Surveyor to say that all the footings were complete and had been signed off by the building inspector. We had done it, except for one detail - we still hadn't received approval for the planning conditions. Hopefully, this wouldn't be a problem - after all we had given plenty of notice.

The second telephone call was altogether more serious though. It appeared that Stuart Rataj had turned up at the site and tried to stop the lorries delivering the concrete by parking his pick-up on private land that gave access to to the site. When challenged by Pete Robinson from number 5 Brookvale and told to move, he became very aggressive and refused. Pete didn't bother to argue for very long - he simply went indoors and telephoned the police whilst Stuart Rataj screamed at him from his pick-up. Now Pete was in the army - tank regiment - so doesn't frighten easily, and eventually Rataj drove wildly off and then parked up on the driveway out of everyone's way saying he was going to count every lorry that came and went (closet trainspotter perhaps?) After some time he seems to have got bored and left, only to return on foot some time later with a fellow parish councillor who started taking photos.

After a visit to site on Sunday where we had a first hand account of all this from our soon-to-be neighbours, I came home and checked the Mid Beds DC web site to see if any changes were recorded for the development. Amazing - there, dated the 14th April 2009 - was the approval for bricks, tiles, landscaping and boundary treatment. So we had complied - footings hadn't started being poured until the 16th, by which time approvals had been granted. Nothing there for the Parish Council to complain about then - what a relief.

Where to from here - well, off to the solicitors on Monday to hit back hard in response to the letter received from the drive owner's solicitor. I'm also pursuing the matter of vested interest not being declared by two parish councillors (Rataj being one of them) who have been most involved in opposing our development - maybe that'll quieten them down a bit, particularly when I seek compensation.

Mr Angry of Clifton

Holes & hospital!

The site on Easter Monday

Well, it has been a funny old week.

We had opted for a suspended floor downstairs as we were advised that it was possible to get a far higher degree of insulation under a suspended floor rather than the more common (nowadays) solid floor. This necessitated excavating 400mm of earth from the whole footprint of the house before the trenches could be dug.

The groundworkers started on Tuesday, bright and early, and by the time I got to site at lunchtime, over 100 tons of earth had been removed and neatly piled in a mound. Arrangements had been made to move this spoil the next day and then the site would be left until after Easter before digging the trenches for the foundations and pouring concrete. So far so good.

Relaxing at home on Tuesday evening Jan noticed a pick-up stop outside and a man in overalls coming down the drive. "Someone for you" said Jan thinking it was the groundworker. When I answered the door I was confronted by a none too happy man who announced that he was the Stuart Rataj, farm manager for the owner of the drive to Wee House. During a rather terse conversation of some 15-20 minutes, with the occasional thinly veiled threat he informed me that his boss was going to take out an injunction for something - it wasn't too clear exactly what, but I think it was because one or two clods of earth had fallen onto the access track to his field (that they never use). He then went on to say I should mark the extent of our land with posts, but that none of it mattered as he would ensure that we would never get permission to upgrade the driveway to support a 12 ton fire appliance as required by building regulations. This last bit was quite a surprise as if true would mean the the council would not sign the house off for occupation. His rambling complaint had started by him asking me for our telephone number which he said the owner of the drive wanted (I've since found out that the owner of the drive doesn't have a telephone!).

As I listened to him I started to feel slightly odd, so thought the best thing to do was to give him the phone number and then end the "conversation". However, I struggled to walk the two paces back to the telephone table and had even greater difficulty seeing the number I was trying to write. By this time I was perspiring quite freely (dripping is a better term, but less polite) and as I turned to go back to the front door I felt quite nauseous and faint. I grabbed the door frame to avoid falling, and our previously less than friendly visitor grabbed me for the same reason. I'm rather vague about what happened next, but I understand I was put in the recovery position on the floor by Mr Rataj and Jan dialled for an ambulance.

First the paramedic arrived, gave me oxygen and did an ECG, followed rapidly by the ambulance. I was whisked off to Bedford Hospital by two charming ladies, one of whom insisted on calling me "chicken"!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, the view seems to be that my blood pressure had dropped to such a level that I collapsed. The likely cause of this is probably the stress of the things going on at work, standing up for some time, and brought to a head with the "aggro" on the doorstep. Apparently, the beta blockers I'm on for high blood pressure stop the heart racing when the adrenalin gets going, and the effect can be for the blood pressure to drop. Research on the internet has shown that other people on beta blockers have had the same problem and that stress seems to have been the suggested cause.

So, a couple of days at home resting, followed by the Easter break and back into the fray on Tuesday. Time to visit the doctor and get a review of the meds I think.

As a post script to this tale. we have had confirmation from a senior planning officer at Mid Beds that the upgrading of the drive is not a requisite of the planning approval and that the addition of one more dwelling does not represent a significant impact on the immediate area - hence the drive only needs to be widened where it meets the public road, and not strengthed as suggested.

"Chicken" of Clifton

We've started!

The new internal layout

The plot today - 4th April 2009.

Having become thoroughly frustrated by planners, the parish council, and one particular neighbour at Brookvale, we decided that we would go with the original approved design, but change the internal layout to suit our needs and try and make the best of the house and plot. So, with a couple of minor changes that needed planning approval - the addition of some french doors in the lounge, a door from the utility room to the garden, and a new window in a shower room. These have now been approved, and although we feel that the position of the house on the plot is not the best, we won't be bothered by further planning nightmares, and of course the extra cost of the Section 106 agreement (read tax) which is now being applied (at least £9000 in our case).

Our new layout is shown above together with a picture of the plot this morning. You can just make out a white line about half way up on the right hand side. This is part of the marking out for the foundations! Our groundworker is starting on Tuesday 7th April, and we will have foundations complete by 17th April.

We've found an excellent firm of building surveyors - Templars of Baldock - who have drawn up some basic plans and submitted them for building control approval. These are just a simple set of plans to meet building control needs and don't reflect our actual requirements.

Mind you, we've still got a couple of hurdles to overcome. Firstly, in theory before we start, we have to obtain approval from the district council for materials to be used - bricks and tiles. Apparently, the samples we have submitted don't appear to be a problem, but we have to wait for formal acceptance (would you expect anything less!). And, we also have to wait for another planner to approve the landscaping we have proposed. However, as we won't be laying bricks at this stage, let alone roof tiles, we will carry on with the foundations as they don't affect either of these requirements.

Of course, things wouldn't be complete without some more hassle. The awkward neighbour has already complained to a senior planning officer saying our build should not start until we've widened the access road. Just for good measure he's also complained about one neighbour's proposed extension, said another neighbour's garage had been built without planning permission (which it didn't need), that the link from our plot to the foul sewer was installed "illegally", and that the owner of number 1 Brookvale is multi-tenanting (he allows his staff to lodge at the house during the week!). This guy's hobby seems to be emailing the council with complaints.

Apparently a senior planning officer visited Brookvale yesterday, totally bemused by the rantings of this idiot who appears to be a very sad and lonely person. He's certainly got few friends at Brookvale. Fortunately the planning people seem to regard him as something of a pain in the glutimus maximus ! Having seen this charmless person last weekend, we were given a rather nervous smile as he walked past. Pity he didn't have the courage to say something then. Trouble is I guess that email gives people courage they don't have in face to face situations.

The next stage is to agree the internal layout and detail, draw up plans, submit them to building control for approval, and then get stuck in!

So, watch this space for developments as they happen.

Relieved of Clifton