The foundation trenches are now almost all complete, with just a small section left to dig at the North-West corner (out of shot at the bottom left of the photo). The Building Control inspector made a visit to check on progress and was happy with the trenches – as expected, because the ground conditions are good with no need for any shoring up of the trenches or extra-deep foundations.
The mini-crusher is now visible in the overview photo because it was in the way of the digging to the left and got relocated. There’s only a small amount of concrete left to be crushed.
The original planning application covered two elements: the construction of the new house and the reconstruction of the original farm outbuildings (barn, stable and cow-shed), arranged around a courtyard. Budget constraints meant it was initially only possible to build the house, but now there’s (expected to be) sufficient funding available for the Outbuildings too.
Page 14 of Project Visuals document approved by Planning in 2013, showing the Outbuildings around a courtyard (part of the house on the left; next door’s steel barn on the right)
From a Planning approval standpoint there’s no issue with starting construction in 2024/25 against planning permission granted in 2013: because there was a single planning application covering both elements, and since construction was ‘started’, planning consent to complete the scope of the original approval remains in perpetuity. Building Control approval isn’t quite the same: while the whole project was covered by a single “Initial Notice” submitted in 2014, since no element of the Outbuildings was started at that time, the new work needs to comply with the latest Building Regulations.
The new buildings will be on the same footprint as, and with the same appearance as, the original outbuildings – but they’ll be used differently from how they were historically:
The original Stable and Hay-Loft will be re-purposed as unheated Storage space
The original Barn will be re-purposed as unheated Garage space, with garage doors added to the north-facing elevation
The original Cow-shed will be re-purposed as a heated hobby Workshop
The remaining building will become a heated Utility room, incorporating a shower room
Since a great deal of preparatory work was undertaken as part of the original design phase it makes sense to continue with the same design team – although some of the personnel are different following a change in the ownership of JSA Architects.
Current status is as follows:
Material choices for the Bricks and Roof Tiles have been confirmed, in line with the old photos on the Photos – Historical pages
Suppliers for external doors and windows, not identified previously, have been provisionally selected
The heating and ventilation solutions have been amended
The insulation standards for the heated half of the buildings have been upgraded
The earlier detailed Drawings have been tweaked in line with the above
The Specification document that accompanies the Drawings has been updated
Following a review of the Drawings and Specification document (scheduled for the week commending 12th August) the intention is to put the project out to Tender within the next few weeks.
There will be a bit more activity on this site as further preparations for the build phase are made then the plan is to resume daily updates once the construction of ‘Phase 2’ commences.
