I rang the Planning department at Huddersfield County Council earlier in the week. We made an appointment to discuss the property that we are in the process of buying. You will find the pages for the Planning Department here.
Before we went in to see the Planning Dept, the feedback was unanimous – it would be a waste of time.
I must admit that I had a whole list of questions which I didn’t ask. Questions about what was and what wasn’t going to be acceptable. I decided that it was too early for these sorts of questions, but better to concentrate on finding out more about the property and the planning process.
Was the meeting a waste of time? Absolutely not! The naysayers couldn’t have been more wrong. It was a very useful session and, while we are far from being in a position of having planning permission, we did manage to establish a number of things.
Namely:
- The property is not Listed;
- The property is not in a conservation area;
- There are no current applications for planning permission and there is no record of any planning applications having been submitted (or rejected);
- There are no planning applcations on any of the adjoining properties;
- There are no Tree Preservation Orders (TPO) on any of the trees on the property;
- There are TPOs on the trees on woods (Hagg Wood) that encloses the property;
- Before we submit our application, we can make an appointment and talk through the designs that we would like to submit. In fact, it would seem to make sense to do this before the plans are too developed as this will save time and money in getting any amendments made.
So all in all, a very useful session. I have subsequently read that some local councils charge (around £120) for these meetings. So top marks to Huddersfield local council!