The Appeal Decision

After a very long wait (fourteen months from first submitting our appeal), we have an answer.

Not a good answer.

We cannot build the house as designed - it's as simple as that. Whilst we were braced for bad news, our internal optimists were hoping that this would be the point that we could actually start actually building a house. It would have been a cause for much celebration but instead we had a week of upset, stress and (just to keep us busy) teething and colds for the children. It really was a low point, not only for our self-build but also in our lives.

Still, we're not ones for wallowing in misery, snot and calpol for very long, so now it's time to put all that we've learned into fresh plans.

We've always said that the main goal of the appeal was to clarify where we stood. Even a refusal would leave us with a set of clear and consistent guidelines for planning a house. Getting such guidelines from the local planning department is difficult because as a lone self-builder your project has a very low priority and details get forgotten between the sporadic meetings you can arrange with the planning officer. Our experience was that in having pre-planning meetings we would submit a design, the planner would suggest a change, we'd make the change and submit it, they'd suggest another change and so on. The design became ever more complicated without actually getting to a point where it was likely to receive permission. The lessons learned are that meetings must be regular to keep the end goal fresh in everyone's mind and that if a design has to be changed it must remain simple or change completely rather than accumulating 'tweaks'.

The actual ruling lists twelve points where the appeals officer felt that the concerns of the planners were justified. In the last few years, we've had plenty of time to think about what we wanted from a home and that has changed a little more since we've had children. Living on the site has also given us an insight into how this location works, from light and seasonal weather to views and access. So, we've taken all of these things and re-written our requirements. The end result is two sides of A4 listing the bare minimum we need, things that would be nice to have, things that we want to avoid and some aims to ensure that the new design might get approval.

We'll be taking those requirements to our architect and giving him free reign to come up with a home for us. Suddenly it's exciting again.

The Appeal

The memory of our appeal that will probably stick with me the longest occurred when we were all standing on site in the rough place the house would be built. My parents had come round for the day to look after the children and when we arrived for the site visit, had spirited them away to look at the boats and throw small objects at the ducks. The inspection took ages, so they returned just as we were positioning ourselves to work out where the house would sit. William staggered directly towards us, his woolly hat pulled down so low over his head that only his nose and enormous grin showed. With his arms out wide so he wouldn't bump into anything, he joyfully shouted out "Daddy!", gave me a big hug, shook our planning consultant's hand and staggered on to the caravan for a juice. After a long morning of earnest discussion, it was a bright ray of sunlight.

The meeting itself was hard to judge. It started at 10am at the council offices with the usual suspects - the inspector, our planning advisor and architect, the council planner, 'Ness and I in attendance. Surprising by their absence were the actual planning officer who has been in charge of the case, and the conservation officer who can (and did) object to our plans as they are in the curtilage of the barn (never get involved in listed buildings if you want quick results). Surprising by their presence were one of our neighbours who had completely independently decided to come along and support us, and our local councillor who said he wanted to present the case of the parish council (who've basically echoed the planners' objections to our designs).

The meeting lasted three hours, then we spent two and a half hours wandering round the countryside looking at the site from various vantage points. The inspector took reams of notes and then called an end to proceedings. We feel we made a solid case and came across as professional and sincere in our aims. After the event, it's hard not to think of various points we should have made, but that's how these things go. Unfortunately, however good our arguments may have been, it comes down to the interpretation of the local and national Planning Policy documents, and specifically whether the appeals officer thinks our house would 'harm the character of the area'. It'll also depend how critically he considers the various arguments made as the planner was adamant that our house would cause catastrophic damage to the countryside. We will apparently find out in five weeks' time from the meeting, so mid January. The inspector was completely poker faced (as he's meant to be) so we have no idea whether we'll 'win' or not.

In fact, as we've explained to various family and friends, we are not dependent on having the appeal upheld. Our aim has always been to produce a house that best suits the plot and whilst we're fairly convinced that the design we've produced is an excellent match, it's certainly not the only house that would work very well on the plot. So why appeal? Why not just submit a different design if the planners aren't keen on this one? The issue is that we have been told so many things that the planning department don't want to see that it's hard to imagine what they would approve. We have very little confidence that we could come up with any alternative design that would receive any more favour than the current one. We hope that even if the appeal is rejected, we shall at least come away with a set of concrete guidelines that we can use to inform a new design. An appeal should at the very least clear the tables and allow us to come up with a new plan that suits everyone's needs.