Plans are nothing; planning is everything

week 2

It's not a quote I'd ever heard before, but when I stumbled across the gem from Dwight D. Eisenhower I couldn't believe how apt it was for our current situation as we head into the fray to try and secure planning permsission for our renovation project. It's quoted in a few different ways, and at different points in his life, but the premise is the same.

Plans are nothing, but planning is everything.

We've spent a fair amount of time thinking about what we needed from the extension and remodel; drawing out some ideas and collecting inspiration; and employing and working with an architect to really draw out what we were looking for. It all now comes down to the local planning authority and whether they agree that what we want to do is in keeping with the various stipulations on planning in our area, and whether our design will impact anyone or anything around us unduly.

First things first, we need all the bits to submit the application:

• Planning application form - fairly straightforward information about what it is your doing; where you're planning on doing it; and who it might affect (always worth giving your neighbours a heads up first if you're doing something extravagant - often easier to keep them onside if you keep them in the loop through the process).
• Location Plan - Large scale plan to show where the site is that your going to be carrying out the work. Be sure to get the right scale and features that ticks the required boxes for your specific council (things like the number of visible road names to give correct context).
• Block Plan - This should show the detail of what's happening within the site itself including any new buildings/walls and their relation to other site elements and the boundaries (which should have been highlighted on the location plan).
• Elevations and Floor Plans - This is where the magic happens. These plans should show all of the detail in terms of what the property currently looks like (elevation plans from each relevant side); what it will look like, in elevation, when you've finished your masterpiece; and the appropriate floorplans for the areas that your making alteration too. This is where all the detail lives, and these plans will likely be the basis on which yiur detailed plans for the builder to quote against are built, so are worth their weight in gold.

So, with all that in mind, we set about getting our bits together to submit for planning. Well, OK, we let the architect do all of this bit for us and just answered a few questions so he could fill in the right forms. I'd definitely advise getting your architect to act as agent in this regard. There was a fair amount of to and fro with the council on our plans and having the architect working with them directly definitely helped move things along quicker than us acting as the go-between.

The process

Once the initial submission was in (£206 charge), the dates were set - 2 months to a decision. Things moved pretty quickly from there - the council sent a representative out to take a look around the site and better understand what we were trying to do. At this point we got the distinct feeling they were a little grumpy over our purchase of the land at the rear, and that they were looking for elements of the design they could hold things up on. As an example, we were very thorough on the design, and as we're planning more than just the basic extension (we want to landscpae the garden, redo the front with raised beds and a new driveway, etc), we included all those bits on the plans for complete transparency. Some of these elements don't need planning permission, but there was a fair bit of grumbling from the council rep as to whether they would be in keeping with the aesthetic of the area, etc.

Once the council had done thier initial appraisal, they liaised with our architect over a number of areas where they had 'concerns'. This is where having the architect act as an agent really paid dividends - they were pushing for the application to be withdrawn, pending a round of consultation with them to come up with a new plan that would be more in keeping with what they would expect and therefore approve. Needless to say, we didn't want the delay or hassle of doing that, and the architect was pretty forthright in turning around a revised design quickly and ensuring that they held the application (and the agreed dates for a decision).

As expected, they pushed back on the balcony. We scaled back to a Juliet balcony, but they still weren't happy, so we ended up going with a design that was purely windows out of the master suite. I still have trouble rationalising how a set of (pretty large) windows is a better option at the rear of a house that backs onto the woodland of a nature reserve than a Juliet balcony. I'm sure the squirrels deserve not to be overlooked, but I'm pretty certain I can hang just as far out of a window as I can out of a Juliet balcony, but hey.

Anyway, we scaled back the plans a little. Firstly, we removed all the bits we'll do anyway, but strictly speaking don't need any kind of planning consent; then we worked out a compromise on the few remaining issues they saw - Juliet balcony becomes large windows; flat-roofed porch becomes pitched roof; wrap-over windows to master en-suite become velux; Front profile of garage/suite modified to balance the mixture of roof/brick (which weirdly means we have to extend the garage forwards - planners, go figure).

All in all, we got to a workable design which, while we'll miss the nice balcony, is pretty close to what we wanted and ticks all of our boxes and more besides.

Now we have to wait to see if they give us the stamp of approval.