"Not a Cat in Hell's Chance" came the reply

Star the Fell

Star the Fell

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Jun 14, 2015
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We had a drive over to Derbyshire last week to look at some log cabins with the idea of buying one to live in.
I fell in love - obviously with the dearest one they did - so we decided to spend a couple of hundred quid on a Planning Consultant to see the best way of getting it through planning.
My OH rang two on Monday and their immediate reply was the above! Both were happy to talk on the phone for no charge but didn't even think it was worth coming out to inspect the site, as soon as we mentioned where we lived, the answer came back NO!
We were told that the best we could do was apply for PP to build a barn which "may be accepted but is unlikely" and then in 10 years time or so apply to convert it into a house.
The other advice we were given was to convert an existing building (stable block) internally only and live in it for 4 years without anyone noticing and then it would become an official residence. hahahaha no chance of that here as everyone seems to know what colour socks you are wearing never mind where you are sleeping!

So the next thought is whether to spend money on my current house to get it as I would like it knowing that I could never have my pony "in my back garden".

Plans for this weekend are to try to work out how many thousands it would cost to "do up" my house!
 
I used to live in the Forest of Bowland and despite having thirteen and a half acres adjoining my house, it was very difficult to even get pp for the stable block and yard / arena. I remember having a similar conversation with a planning officer - as we wanted to erect s log cabin next to the stables. The planning officer told me not to waste my money on even paying out for a consultation! Humph. It is annoying - land in the countryside comes with sooooo many restrictions. Where we were you couldn't even put up a summerhouse in the back garden as it was a listed building! (I think even tho garden was classed as curtilage we had to get permissions for stuff like that). I feel your pain!
Personally I wouldn't invest in your current house because you will always be wanting to move and find your dream / stables / land. Might be worth waiting until you find the right place? Unless you are absolutely sure you don't want to move (just speaking from experience on this as we renovated our first home and just as it was finished we moved to somewhere with land!)
 
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I think you are right Trewsers. I know I will always be looking out for the perfect place to move to, and the worry is I could easily spend £20k on my house and I wouldn't get it back if I were to sell.
I have seen the PERFECT property but it is in Caithness and my elderly parents ( who have / have had cancer) are in Manchester so its not really feasible to move so far.
Unfortunately whilst I own land and property, they are not together and to get the same as I have now but together in the same area would cost me £100k at least, going by what is up for sale at the moment.
It is just so disappointing.
I would love to live in Forest of Bowland - it's lovely round there!!
 
Star the Fell said:
I think you are right Trewsers. I know I will always be looking out for the perfect place to move to, and the worry is I could easily spend £20k on my house and I wouldn't get it back if I were to sell.
I have seen the PERFECT property but it is in Caithness and my elderly parents ( who have / have had cancer) are in Manchester so its not really feasible to move so far.
Unfortunately whilst I own land and property, they are not together and to get the same as I have now but together in the same area would cost me £100k at least, going by what is up for sale at the moment.
It is just so disappointing.
I would love to live in Forest of Bowland - it's lovely round there!!
Click to expand...

I feel your pain. It is hard specially when parents are older and not well. My father has the dreaded dementia and is quite a handful at times, my mum looks after him. I would have liked them to come up to Orkney with me but my mum thought it was too big a move (which from her point of view it probably is). But we keep in touch and natter a lot on the phone most days! I think property has gone silly price wise with land. Forest of Bowland where we moved from is nice, but really I wonder who can afford most of the places with land - they are just through the roof price wise. I am lucky to have made good my escape! Lol I can only live here because we both work online, otherwise it wouldn't have been an option.
 
We currently have a house at one end of the village and a sable yard at the other about half a mile away at the most, only a 7 minute walk but we would prefer to live on site. It is extremely difficult to get p&p here for anything other than shelter for animals. If you do know how we could get around it, I would love to know.
 
We tried about 20 years ago to put in pp for agricultural buildings. You should have heard some of the rubbish conditions they required back then.
20 years on it would seem they will grant anything now. We are in an AONB. You should see the monstrous buildings you can have nowadays. Certainly not in keeping with the area.
I have no faith in planning departments and there committees.
 
Some friend of our own about 50 acres... they live in a caravan on there land and have been threatened with and even taken to court ( which was dropped at the last minute) ....The have ponies, sheep and goat... and say they have to be there for there security and care....

The council know they are there but dont do anything because they have a permanent address they pay council tax on. They can live 10 months a year on site anyway but everybody knows they live all year round.

If you keep sheep you are allowed to stay on site to care for them. or something I know its down to keeping sheep even if you only keep a flock of two or three.

I could ask them if they would give you some advise if you want? Via phone :)
 
We have tried " we need to be on site because...." as we have one pony who is 27 with cushings and a 19 yo who suffers from colic. Not a reasonable reason apparently. We have advised told to buy some alpacas as we have more chance of getting pp for residential then......


No way could I live in a caravan, I need my space! The log cabin we were looking at was a similar size to my house.

There is a field at the back of my current house, I am going to ask the owner if I can have first refusal if he decides to sell......don't hold out much hope of that happening though, other than that I have a friend who lives in a cottage in front of my yard, I know she wants to move to Scotland in the next few years so will wait for that happening...even though I don't like the house.
 
Come and live here. If there is a gap in the fence it gets planning to put a bed on!!!!

Seriously everyone is pretty miffed off here with building. They are wanting to build on a children's play area. Fields that did have livestock and horses, gone.
I'm talking an extra 1100 houses plus school. I don't think anyone would notice a log cabin.
 
This is what is driving us mad.
They have granted pp to build 170 houses one mile outside our village. It will increase traffic through the village as everyone will use it as a rat run. The houses are being built on fields and will dramatically affect the countryside feel of the area.
Our log cabin would not been seen at all from the road. It would affect no-ones view at all- it would be seen from the back windows of about 5/6 houses, and then only from the upstairs. Madness!!!
 
Star the Fell said:
This is what is driving us mad.
They have granted pp to build 170 houses one mile outside our village. It will increase traffic through the village as everyone will use it as a rat run. The houses are being built on fields and will dramatically affect the countryside feel of the area.
Our log cabin would not been seen at all from the road. It would affect no-ones view at all- it would be seen from the back windows of about 5/6 houses, and then only from the upstairs. Madness!!!
Click to expand...

Sooooo frustrating isn't it? We were similar, our cabin would NEVER have been seen by the public as we owned a two mile road so no passing traffic at all. Just crazy! We were literally in the middle of nowhere. Yet only a few miles away they have allowed 200 affordable houses - and a further 150 executive homes! Truly ridiculous.
 
What's lost here is agricultural, I didn't think you could build on that. But two farms are going.
 
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