We are just watching on TV “Grand Designs“, a UK based building program, and watched in horror as one mans dream home fell apart due to a lack of written agreed planning consent and neighbours who threatened legal action through to  judicial review.

A judicial review would have tied up planning for a decade and the proposed solution was to drop the house by 1 to 2 meters (up to 6ft), remove windows and change balconies. These changes would have been catastrophic.

While the guy had planning permission and agreed heights and designs etc etc some critical aspects were not written down and when challenged by a neighbour the planning permission was revoked and that’s when the troubles started.

3 years later and the house is almost finished but the guys dream has been shattered and his desire to live his dream that he had for 20 years is destroyed.

There are two lessons here which both I believe are as important as each other.

Lesson 1 – Neighbours!

Those next door to you or those around the corner from you. You have to take into account neighbours.

I’ve entitled the post “The importance of good neighbours” but it could easily be entitled :
“The importance of being a good neighbour”.

We have a set of neighbours called Sid & Liz who are amazing. They have welcomed up with open arms, they have helped us every step of the way and are a fantastic inspiration to what we’d like to achieve.  It’s not just the big things like planning advice, electricity and water connection they help us with but it’s the small things that are simply lifesaving.

With this in mind this is why you MUST MUST MUST develop or renovate with those around you in mind. We know we’ll be making some noise and sooner or later they’ll be some inconvenience and at this point you need people on your side.

Renovate or develop with those around you in mind. Work to enhance and add to where you are, after all you/we have decided this is where we want to spend the rest of our lives and those around you have the same idea so keep that in mind with everything you do.

Lesson 2 – Get everything in writing

With all property development there are rules and rules need to be followed.
When things are agreed make sure you have them in writing and stick to what has been agreed.  These rules are there for a reason mainly to protect everyone’s quality of life so stick to what has been agreed.

We are in the middle of getting plans drawn up, these plans will go through changes, edits, improvements and no doubt setbacks.  It’s to minimize these set backs that we are being meticulous about making sure these plans show the house before and after the renovation and that whatever we want to do is clearly shown on the plans what we will be submitting to the planning authorities

GRAND DESIGNS UPDATE
I found a link to the episode I was talking about above, please take time to give it a read.
Chilterns Water Mill: The Story