Listed Building Consent refused - appeal or give up?

qy206

This is the first time I'm ever attempting to doing any refurbishments at all! Apologies for the long explanation...

Bought a Grade II listed property earlier this year with my partner and we planned to do some internal renovations, namely make the downstairs open plan with a spiral staircase and add a bathroom upstairs. We were relatively confident that we'd get the permission as there was an almost identical flat on the same road that had managed to alter their layout in the same way.

That was the plan anyway and we were so excited to do this as it's our first property together. We made the application and were told our decision would be communicated to us by 19th September.... Come 19th September, no news. I ring the case officer and was informed that apparently another flat on the street had made a similar application and they wanted to wait to view that flat before they made a decision... We wait again. I call again on 4th Oct. Apparently English Heritage are delaying the application... Finally, today, almost 1 month after our original deadline, the case officer comes back with a refusal!

Their excuse: apparently the stairs and walls on the lower floor are part of the original features of the property. The other flat who'd been granted permission had already been "significantly altered" at the time of the planning application.

Now I find this hard to understand since at some point, these buildings were all houses and were later converted into separate flats. So how can these walls be part of the original features? It is also very frustrating to know that an identical flat achieved planning permission whereas we are being refused for almost identical works.

We are considering appealing now but are a bit worried about the costs. We know that places like Savills are well-known but possibly very expensive. Can anyone offer advice on this?

Also, I read that the appeals procedure caters for delayed applications. Will there be any leniency on our case given that we didn't hear back until almost 1 month after the deadline?

Sorry again for the long post! It's just that we really don't have much experience with this if any (!!) so any help would be very very much appreciated!

System

the problem that you have since other similar properties have been altered in the past is that yours is now even more special given the original features...
you could go down the route of an appeal but (in my experience anyway) it's difficult to win when its based on eh/hs recommendations - did you have an architect advise on the alterations?
Normally the best route to go down is to enter discussion with eh directly, get them out to discuss the alterations and see what they would let you do, what they don't want you to do etc - they are usually much better to deal with in person - make the case that you are preserving the building, but you need it to work for you

Doozergirl

Did you call out the Conservation Officer before you put your plans in?

The Listing covers everything in the property. Features are added over time (eg. new walls, being separated into flats) all of these items are also covered by the listing. Getting Listed Building Consent is a game of compromise and negotiation and it's not even worth putting in an application without a proper conversation with the conservation officer. Each has their opinion and that opinion is the rule. Your home is unique, it can't be compared to another when it comes to LBC because your listing is a unique one.

My own opinion is that you will never get listed building consent to remove an existing staircase and replace it with something as inauthentic as a spiral staircase.

Rule number one of buying a listed building would be to know that you would be happy with the layout as it is. Just because someone else has carried out at some point in the past, it doesn't mean you can. I think you've gone into this with your eyes closed, and either naivety or bad advice. Who drew up these plans for you?

Extensions to listed building that contain the space you want would be easier than attempting to knock the existing building around to suit. Adding would be better in the eyes of a conservation officer, without taking away.

I would not appeal. Start the correct way; firstly, appreciate that your job as custodian of this building is to protect it, talk to the conservation officer, listen to them and only then start your plans and submit them for LBC. Forget the spiral staircase altogether - that is not preserving or protecting, with a listed building, demolishing a key feature would be more like vandalism.

27col

I love to see old buildings, listed or not, refurbished and put to new uses. But I would never get involved with a listed building myself. Too many people involved with the power to tell you what you can or cannot do.
I sometimes get the impression that they would rather let the building fall into dereliction than let you dare disobey them.

qy206

27col wrote: »

I love to see old buildings, listed or not, refurbished and put to new uses. But I would never get involved with a listed building myself. Too many people involved with the power to tell you what you can or cannot do.
I sometimes get the impression that they would rather let the building fall into dereliction than let you dare disobey them.

I totally agree. They display a great deal of self-importance. The case officer helpfully informed me that he won 90% of his appeals..."not that it's relevant..." :mad:

I had a browse through the planning portal appeals site. Seems to be about 10% -15% success rate. Has anyone had any experience?

System

I have had experience of planning appeals - if you answer the questions put to you it would be much much easier to see if you have a case for appeal or not, until you give any more detail about the process you have gone through so far it is hard to say - based on what you have said so far, an appeal would most likely fail

muckybutt

Ooops !

I live in a Grade II cottage and recently got planning passed in a matter of weeks no hassle at all.

From the start you have to involve everyone from English Heritage and the local council conservation officer and planning officer. We had several meetings before hand with the council deciding on materials etc to make our extension as sympathetic to the existing build as possible.

We appointed an architect and a private planning officer who made the applications on our behalf which was a heritage statement of roughly 20 or so pages.

What we have learnt is go about things the right way from the start and make sure everyone is on board with your ideas, we had to sacrifice some features we wanted in the new build but with agreements in place before the planning went in there were no knock backs. The conservation officer has been a bit problematic with materials and joinery details but you have to abide by their rules and what they want or come to some sort of compromise otherwise you'll just wind them up and get no where.

Rather than appeal yourself get the conservation officer down to your place and appoint a planning officer that has had dealings with listed buildings and take it from there.

qy206

the_r_sole wrote: »

I have had experience of planning appeals - if you answer the questions put to you it would be much much easier to see if you have a case for appeal or not, until you give any more detail about the process you have gone through so far it is hard to say - based on what you have said so far, an appeal would most likely fail

We had a draftsman who came by recommendation but in hindsight, he did not do any of the things that were mentioned above. He did not recommend we speak to a conservation officer. He did not recommend that we speak to anyone in fact. He actually told us that he felt that most likely the plans would go through and we didn't have much to worry about...

System

that should have been your first sign of something wrong there - any listed building works usually involve some discussion with conservation officers/planning officers before any formal submissions!

qy206

muckybutt wrote: »

Ooops !

I live in a Grade II cottage and recently got planning passed in a matter of weeks no hassle at all.

From the start you have to involve everyone from English Heritage and the local council conservation officer and planning officer. We had several meetings before hand with the council deciding on materials etc to make our extension as sympathetic to the existing build as possible.

We appointed an architect and a private planning officer who made the applications on our behalf which was a heritage statement of roughly 20 or so pages.

What we have learnt is go about things the right way from the start and make sure everyone is on board with your ideas, we had to sacrifice some features we wanted in the new build but with agreements in place before the planning went in there were no knock backs. The conservation officer has been a bit problematic with materials and joinery details but you have to abide by their rules and what they want or come to some sort of compromise otherwise you'll just wind them up and get no where.

Rather than appeal yourself get the conservation officer down to your place and appoint a planning officer that has had dealings with listed buildings and take it from there.

Thanks for the insight. Really wish we'd known some of this beforehand. We are however wanting to knock walls down rather than extend which is a bit different. Just wish we'd hired someone more knowledgeable to begin with... the whole process has just take sooo long....

lostinrates

27col wrote: »

I love to see old buildings, listed or not, refurbished and put to new uses. But I would never get involved with a listed building myself. Too many people involved with the power to tell you what you can or cannot do.
I sometimes get the impression that they would rather let the building fall into dereliction than let you dare disobey them.

Doozergirl's husband is my builder.

He's here today in our listed house that we are doing quite extensive work on over the years.

The recipe to success? Not sure. We had a good, very experienced architect and he compiled an amazingly comprehensive file, we spent a long time in pre planning talks and with conservation officer on site,

We had NO complaints at parish level, ( not overlooked though lots of people 'care' about our house or feel historically connected). We've enlarged into an attached barn and plan to rebuild a missing end if the builder and do a loft conversion. Sympathetically approached we found......its all possible.

I'd do the listed part, sensibly approached again. Its the financial aspect of listed over new build that just doesn't stack up.

Also, I'd just say, that while we are making some expensive, and big changes, we're not removing ANY thing 'original'. We'd not dream of removing a staircase, It DOES show history. Of course, others might have done it, and that's part of why listings are so important, because we were obliterating our historical building stock.

Sme things have to change.....as windows rot, they need upgrading. Here we're doing that with wooden 'historic' grade double glazing. Is it as beautiful as the original, no. Its not. I have a bit issue because there are two original windows that look good but don't open, we don't know what to do with them ATM, because while we have permission to 'upgrade them' with the others, I don't want to. They are what I love about the house. We have one very old stair case, and one that I think is last century replacement....not quite sure when, probably patched in with bits from an original. Still, it will stay, because it shows the changes that happened to the house. That's part of what listing does.


We have changed 'flow' going through a very original outside wall, and IMO that's been the thing I am most amazed conservation officer allowed and that is most dubious of us.