Mcloughlin Planning are pleased to have secured planning permission for a new private swimming pool in the grounds of a rural picturesque Cotswold property.

After securing permission for the conversion of agricultural barns to provide a new residential home, our client was looking at ways to enhance the landscaping around their property and provide a private pool for themselves. After initially applying alone to Cotswold District Council, the landowner ran into issues with the Council and had to withdraw the application.

Concerns were raised of the impact of the development on the surrounding countryside (which form part of the AONB), the impact on a nearby Grade I listed church and the character of the area.

Our Associate Director Chris Fleming, worked closely with the client and architects, Portus and Whitton https://portusandwhitton.co.uk…, to consider where best to site the development in light of the immediate site constraints and what the best planning strategy would be moving forward.

Helping the client through the initial pre-application meetings stage with the Council and the subsequent planning application, we were able to ensure the proposal accorded with local planning policies and would respect the historical significance of the nearby Grade I listed church.

Given our long term working relationship with Cotswold District Council, when any questions or queries came to up from the case officer, we were able to quickly respond and liaise with the necessary officers or third party consultants.

We are delighted to have secured planning permission for what will be a visual enhancement to the property and a new recreational space for its occupants.

The Ashfield District Council Emerging Local Plan Consultation is now underway from the 4^th
October 2021 through to the 16^th November 2021. The Local Plan will set the policies and objectives for development throughout this District in Nottinghamshire up to the year 2038.

This emerging Plan is desperately needed for the District because a previous attempt to provide an up-to-date plan in 2016 was withdrawn. Current planning decisions are being made from a Local Plan which was adopted back in 2002.

With much of the southern area of the district lying in the Green Belt, the Council is looking to review the Green Belt as a means to deliver new housing and employment sites. This includes two proposed new settlements at Whyburn Farm and Cauldwell Road which will help deliver a fraction of the needed 8,226 new homes required over the plan period.

There remains a question as to whether sufficient housing has been allowed for in the Emerging Local Plan. The National Government’s standard housing target methodology requests more homes than has been allowed for in this Emerging Local Plan. Despite this, the Council remains of the view that the new settlements and proposed allocations in the Hucknall, Kirkby, Sutton and Selston parish areas will be sufficient.

This provides an excellent opportunity for those wanting to promote development sites in the District. Drawing on our extensive experience of strategic promotion, we offer a commitment and cost free initial conversation on the strategic land and planning options available to you.

Call or email Nathan McLoughlin 01242 895008. nathan.mcloughlin@mplanning.co.uk

Staycations have been the main way for many of us in the UK to grab a holiday this summer. There has been a substantial increase in demand for bookings at Bed and Breakfasts, hotels, apartments, cottages, camping sites and glamping sites. Reports suggest that there is still a very significant proportion of the population who will continue to holiday in the UK over the next few years until the worldwide pandemic subsides.

This provides an opportunity to take advantage of this boom and provide places for people to stay for landowners and property owners, who may look to develop holiday lets and farms, who may be able to diversify their land.

We are supporting several landowners with the planning issues around their tourism plans including the erection of glamping pods and barn conversions and have a wealth of experience in this area.

Securing planning permission takes time. Projects like these (based on our experience) normally take in the region of 3-6 months and whilst many Councils support the provision of new tourism developments in principle, there are often complex technical considerations. These can significantly delay an application if they are not identified and dealt with early on.

Therefore, with the summer now coming to an end and Autumn and Winter beginning to settle in (nothing like a cold/wet British winter!), now is a great time to be looking at securing the necessary planning consents ready to hit the ground running for next spring and summer.

Contact Chris for a commitment and cost free chat about your options on 01242 895008

Chris.moore@mplanning.co.uk

McLoughlin Planning have successfully secured planning permission for the conversion of a prominent Victorian building in Cheltenham to provide 7 x new residential flats.

Our client approached us with the aspiration of converting the property into flats and requested guidance on the best steps to securing planning permission. They also wished to use our services in submitting and managing the application on their behalf.

Joe Seymour, one of our Senior Planners, has a wealth of experience working previously for and now with Cheltenham Borough Council and so was an ideal fit to lead the project.

Joe was able to quickly identify that the property is locally listed, in a conservation area and has neighbouring trees with Tree Preservation Orders. Although the property is not on the national list of buildings with Historic England, the building is listed as “Locally significant” in the Conservation Area Character Appraisal for the The Park area of Cheltenham.

After advising the client of the site’s constraints and working with the architect on the layout, siting and number of residential flats to ensure a robust submission, we helped assemble the case with a supporting Planning Statement, review of supporting plans and reports and submitting the application.

The site’s heritage restrictions led to debate with the Council on the impact of on the nearby protected trees. However, through proactive engagement with Council officers and communication with the wider project team, Joe managed to find a solution and secure planning permission.

The proposal provides a great example of the importance in understanding a site’s constraints early on to influence a planning application strategy and therefore identify what investigations and reports are needed to ensure a robust submission. Dedicating the time and resources early in the project can help ensure a smooth planning determination process.

We are so pleased that we have been able to add value to our client’s property and secure additional much needed new homes in Cheltenham. It was a pleasure working with our client and the team at Heta Architects https://hetaarchitects.com/.

As a nation, we have long relied on small, medium and large house builders to provide our much needed new homes. Increasingly these developments have found themselves under fire for their “bland architecture” or are labelled as “shodily built estates” (as referred to in a recent Times article).

There is a growing acknowledgement from National Government that we need to build homes ourselves – with the focus on putting the customer in charge, but unfortunately this still seems to be a foreign concept.

The Times report commented that in the UK approximately 13,000 homes a year are built as “self-build” by their future occupiers (about 8 percent of total annual housing development). Compare this to Germany where 55 percent of homes are built individually.

A Government review by Richard Bacon on housing and self-build (published 21/8/21) was damning to say the least, referring to new housing as something feared and thought of as pollution.

Of note, one of the six key recommendations in the review was “Offering greater support to Custom and Self-Build housebuilding through planning reforms”.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-review-into-scaling-up-self-build-and-custom-housebuilding-report

Whilst we still wait with bated breath on how emerging Government reforms from the recent planning White Paper will offer greater support to self-builders, there are some actions you can take now, to progress your aspiration to build your own home a reality.

• Contact the local council of the area where you want to build your home and ask to join their Self-build Register List. This helps the Council in understanding their local demand and how they can provide the necessary plots within three years. Individuals or groups can register their interests, which is a good way of ensuring serviced plots come forward for purchase. Of course, the main constraint here is the waiting game.

(Since 2016, councils have had to supply plots to individuals within three years of being added to their Self-build Register List, or they are considered to be technically undersupplying homes which puts their Five Year Supply calculations and housing policies into question).

• If you already have already found your dream plot, before beginning a planning application, it is important to understand whether your plot has any environmental or heritage restrictions and consider it’s suitability for development based on sustainability requirements.

Self build has a compelling edge over “normal” residential development, if your Council is undersupplying on Self-Build demand and has missed the three year target, then a presumption in favour of sustainable development can apply. The self-build argument therefore can add another important string to your bow of planning arguments in defence of securing planning permission.

There are also cost benefits to applying for Self-Build with the opportunity to seek exemption from Community Infrastructure levy’s (CIL) from your planning permission, which can often be a costly post-planning bill to receive from the Council.

Mcloughlin Planning has years of experience securing a variety of self-build developments, from “grand design” homes to individual new private homes across the country. In addition to raising awareness of this development route with our clients, we can offer experience advice on your opportunities for securing planning permission.

Please contact Chris Moore chris.moore@mplanning.co.uk 07990 656351 to discuss any queries you may have on getting planning permission for your self build home.

A call for development sites exercise is an important process for a council so they can assemble a selection of development sites for review. They need to have a stock of sites ready for development so they can show they will meet their housing targets as set by National Government.

The Council will use the evidence submitted during the call for sites process to make a decision as to whether the sites should be allocated for development or not. This is where we have helped numerous clients and can help you if you have land in the South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse District.

In a submission for a Call for Sites exercise it is essential that the planning benefits and virtues of the site are properly explained. We will demonstrate to the Council that the site can be developed and ensure that the technical constraints, which can influence the decision to allocate, are fully understood and de-risked.

Our team monitor national planning guidance and emerging development strategies in order to be completely up to date in our strategy for de-risking your site and being able to show to the Council that the site ‘fits’ with its emerging thinking and that of the government. Of course, we will be completely honest with you, if we believe that your site is perhaps not quite suitable at present.

Our previous post on the Oxfordshire 2050 Plan highlighted the development strategies that the Oxfordshire Councils are looking at. This will inevitably mean that the role and function of some settlements will change as the Council looks to accommodate the growth required. Understanding this development strategies and how your land relates to them is an important part of making the most of the Call for Sites process. This is how we can help.

Please contact Nathan McLoughlin, Nathan.mcloughlin@mplanning.co.uk
or 01242 895008 for a free initial site appraisal.

Planning policies and legislation have seen numerous changes and amendments, with the primary goal of “streamlining the system” and removing complicated planning barriers to land and property owners.

With this goal in mind, notable changes include altering the use class order, with the introduction of Class E and the widening of development options for homeowners under permitted development rights (such as: Class AA for upward extensions).

To counter the National Government’s aspirations, some Local Planning Authorities have been taking advantage of Article 4 directions. This tool allows Councils to disapply, where appropriate, certain rights where they consider it to be a harm to their district/borough.

Whilst these rights can be applied by any Local Planning Authority, it is particularly prevalent in London Boroughs. To name a few examples from our experience:

• HMO: At least 19 of the 32 boroughs have restrictions for residential to houses of multiple occupation
• Office to residential: At least 24 of the 32 boroughs have restrictions for office/commercial to residential conversions
• Class AA (upward extensions): Barking and Dagenham have adopted an article 4 for upward extensions in specific locations within the borough with Bromley and Hillingdon following swiftly.

What does this mean for property owners?

If you fall into one of the patchwork of article 4 directions, you will need to apply for planning permission in place of prior approval or a lawful development certificate.

However, Council’s cannot apply an article 4 direction until the permitted development right has been “made”. Article 4 directions are often taking several months to adopt, can require amendments or just be dropped by Councils, therefore providing further opportunities to apply for prior approval or a lawful development certificate.

Keeping up to date on changes and new article 4 directions can be a vital part of preparing a robust planning strategy for your property. This is something we routinely monitor in order to the provide up to date information for our clients.

Please contact Chris Moore on chris.moore@mplanning.co.uk
or call 07990 656351 if you would like a free, no obligation review to see if these issues may be applicable to your property aspirations.

30th July 2021 sees the launch of the Regulation 18 consultation on the Oxfordshire 2050 Plan, which will run for 10 weeks. Having successfully delivered housing sites in the County, we thought we’d highlight a couple of key points of the plan and what it means for landowners and developers looking at their options for delivering housing growth.

The Plan is based around a series of Policy Options, covering an extremely broad range of environmental and social issues, alongside the more traditional matters of employment growth, housing targets and development strategies. It equally recognises that it is a constrained environment with areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Green Belts and Conservation Areas to name a few.

In terms of housing, the Plan considers a range based on 3386 d/pa, 4113 d/pa and 5093 d/pa, which equates to a County-wide target (when taking int account existing commitments) of 27,300, 49,110 or 78,500 homes. How are these homes going to be accommodated?

The Plan faces a considerable set of challenges. There are a number of environmental focused policy options, based on protecting areas from development. For example, the Green Belt policy option is vague on the need for release, rather focusing on “strategic opportunities” to enhance the green belt by encouraging sport and recreation with no clarity of how this would be actually secured.

That said, the 5 Options are:

1 – Focus on opportunities at larger settlements and planned growth locations. This is seen as ‘business as usual’ building on the adopted strategies of the current local plans.

2 – Focus on Oxford-led growth, inevitably this will lead to green belt release, a fact readily recognised by the Plan.

3 – Focus on opportunities in sustainable transport corridors and at strategic transport hubs, such as the M40, A40 and A420 as well as the aspirational idea of new railway stations.

4 – Focus on strengthening business locations, based on the Oxfordshire Local Industrial Strategy.

5 – Focus on supporting rural communities, which recognises the wider rural area of the County. This includes the options for new settlements and reducing pressure on the main locations identified in Option 1.

The 2050 Plan is a high-level document, it does not allocate sites and it does not set housing targets for individual LPAs. What it does do is to set out the emerging development strategies which are being actively considered.

We strongly recommend that those with land development interests and aspirations engage with this Plan. Get in touch and we will be happy to advise you on how to do this to maximise the potential of your land going forward.

We are delighted to have achieved further success in our development plan promotion work by securing an allocation for housing development in the Crudwell Neighbourhood Plan, on behalf of our client DB Land and Planning and the landowner.

A key part of acquiring this allocation was working with the Parish Council to address their concerns in order to ensure their support for the allocation. We assembled and managed a team that was able, with our experience in this area, to pull together essential technical knowledge that demonstrated that the site was deliverable.

We now look forward to working closely with the Parish Council to prepare a scheme for the site and move forward with a detailed planning application, submitting it to Wiltshire Council later this year.

https://tonks-consulting.co.uk…

https://www.bm3.co.uk/

https://www.id-studio.co.uk/

Great end to a successful week, we are pleased to be part of the impressive team which are helping Gloucester Rugby Club with its new training facilities and Kingsholm Pitch Upgrade works.

Working with The Development Studio https://www.tds.uk/ and the wider team, we have now submitted the applications to the Council and will be moving forward with securing their validation and ultimate determination.

Having assessed the proposals against the development plan, there is a clear planning policy case for the proposals. These policies, along with other associated documents from the Council underline the importance of the Club to the City, not just on match days but also in terms of the wider reputation of the City.

This underlines the importance that major business have in ensuring the economic success of a town or City and why this should be taken seriously in the determination of planning applications.

We are acting on behalf of a number of the County’s high profile businesses and welcome the opportunity to discuss how we can help your business with developing your commercial property portfolio. We never charge for giving our initial, honest appraisal of your project.