Get on with it

So we've ordered the house. That is, we've told the timber frame company to start manufacturing it. Very exciting. Delivery date is late April, which gives us four months to prepare the site. 

We have drawings for a new and permanent steel frame to hold up the front wall, so we'll be placing that order soon.

We've restarted the lease for the field at the back, so we can build the access road.

All this is in anticipation of planning permission, which is promised for Friday. There will be beer.

Good eh?

Nuther Old Photo

This old un-sent postcard turned up..

Interesting (for us) to see the empty space to the left of the Sunday school, which was later filled with a small cottage attached to the Town Hall. The gap between our gable end and the cottage is about 30cm now. Luckily the people there are nice and supportive :)

Still waiting

Wow, September was my last blog. Unforgivable.

So what's happened? Well.. not much

We had a big fire on 5 November...

Thanks Patty for that video :-)

..then, finding we STILL don't have planning permission, we moved the graveyard garden onward a few notches...

Roughly 100 shrubs planted in, luckily before the oncoming deep frosts. Most of them will be moved later, just need to keep them alive for now, they weren't cheap.

That's it I'm afraid. Mostly a picture post, but we really are close to getting the planning permission, so I promise more interesting stuff soon.

Valid

We're validated. As in our planning application has, after weeks and weeks of silly shenanigans, been deemed valid.

That means our application for planning permission will now be assessed. There's now a consultation period which lasts until 11 October, where lots of important people look at the application and try to find a way to reject it. That's the way I see it anyway.

Hopefully it will be accepted on 11 October and we can get on with building a house.

More later, taters xx

Hops

So we went and did a bit of gardening today - letting it all go back to the wild helps nobody. Bit of weeding on the south side, where the trees are thin and weeds can thrive if you let um.

Wasn't all work though..

Lyn spent some time planning where the meadow grass will be sown:

The golden mulch is actually spent hops from the local brewery Torrside Brewing

I stood around taking photos for a bit.

Don't have any more news of planning yet I'm afraid, it will be ages until they answer our answer to the planning refusal. Slowly, slowly...

Blazing

Just had our planning application refused, with four reasons detailed. None of the reasons are actually relevant to our application. 

Utter cut & paste nonsense.

I know there's a staffing problem as in so many places now, which means everyone is overworked. However, the person that did this to us must realise the effect it has. How long would it take to double check the letter?

To say the least, we're angry at the planning office.

I'll say no more, for fear of regretting it.

Plan B Planning Application

Title of this post says it all really. But I'll blather on anyway.

Today our people have sent in planning application details for Plan B - the timber framed house in which we hope to laugh out our dotage.

Opinions vary on how long this will take - from 21 days if the public consultation is all that's required, to infinity and beyond if there are any objections. We're as confident as we can be that we've given enough information in enough detail, having engaged a planning consultant to work alongside our architect this time. Also the external part is virtually the same as our (eventually) successful application for Plan A.

Thanks to Caroline at Emery Planning and, as ever, Jeremy at Poulter Architect for your help.

More when I get it.

This and that

So plan B is taking shape.

As described in my last post, the house will be timber-framed and will sit inside the Chapel walls. For that reason, the cladding upon it is only of interest to me and the Mrs. But I'm talking about it anyway.

Here are some samples:

We've chosen the one on the left, as it goes well with the chapel walls. It will also be broken up by occasional panels of burnt larch, which is black and shiny. Window frames will be dark grey. Jeremy (the architect) sent us this mock-up of what you'll see from outside:

We're very close to putting in our new planning application, watch this space.

How Much?

Well, how poor am I, at keeping this site updated?

Firstly, the matter of will we/won't we build it: sort of.

The QS report finally arrived last week, to a chorus of "Jeez that's a lot". It didn't take us long to realise that even cutting every corner, we just don't have that much money, or even the ability to borrow it. Inflation, transport costs, material costs, the war in Ukraine, all have contributed to the tripling of the cost for build. I don't really do regrets, but if I did, I would wish we'd been able to complete the project in 2020. Chalk up one more victory to the gods of red tape.

Many plans B were then discussed:

• Leave it until the prices drop
• Put a caravan on it and live cheap
• Use it as an outdoor popup venue
• Sell it

All were rejected except the one obvious choice: build a timber framed house inside the chapel walls, and make whatever repairs are needed to preserve those walls, to stop them deteriorating any further. We get to keep the site and live in a fantastic place, and possibly without going into debt to achieve it.

This means we're at the very beginning of another planning application. Plans for the grounds and the basic structure of the place haven't changed - we will still open the graveyard as a woodland walk, we'll still use part of the property to run community events, gigs, weddings etc - these will now happen in the old Sunday school grounds at the west end of the site, instead of inside the old chapel walls.

For the house, we're thinking 3 bedrooms, with a flat roof, maybe even a green roof. This won't be higher than the chapel walls, so the site will lose none of its beauty. Here are a couple of line drawings done by the wonderful Jeremy at Poulter Architects:

There will be a good sized gap between the house and the walls, allowing for a nice cloistered area for decking, bits of garden etc.

The temporary steel structure which currently holds up the front wall will have to be replaced with something more pleasing to the eye (and permanent) which allows us to use the front entrance. Over to the structural engineer for that. The temporary structure cost £20,000, so we're a bit concerned about the next bill.

Our hard-won access road, which we still haven't built due to doubts about planning conditions, will have to go on hold until the new planning application is complete. We'll be contacting the Town Council, who lease us the land, for permission to halt the lease payments for that period. We really need to save now, and £360 per month on a field we don't use is hard to sustain.

Estimates vary on how long planning will take, but best guess is six months. 

Name change

It seemed right at the time we bought the place, to name the blog "Owl Times", as there were owls on site. There are still owls on site, but Pleasant Times is more appropriate.

More soon

Old photo

 Just been sent this image, from 1996. Check out those roof trusses!

Owl on, owlers :-)

A victory, of sorts

Well, we've had an apology from the planning office, and full planning permission, with all conditions met, for the entire project, granted.

That's huge. Grave layouts, planting schedules, window specs, roof spec, conservation issues, bat surveys, drains, electrical supply, rendering and a million other details are now accepted.

This means we can build the road, clear the site, erect the crane, build the house.

However..

Recent events (not least war and the cost of living crisis) have put the whole project in doubt. We have finite resources and it was always touch-and-go if we could afford to build it.

We've engaged a quantity surveyor to give us a definitive price for the build. When that lands we will have a go/no-go decision, after which we'll go or .. not go.

Expect that decision around Easter.

Meanwhile here's a little movie of "The day we spent 20,000 on scrap metal". At least now we know that, despite the best efforts of the gods of red tape and the winter storms, the front wall will be there when we need it.

Here are a few pics taken on the day.

This was a mobile crane, not the full monster we need for the full build.

Have fun, more news around Easter.

Hops

Spent yesterday mending fences after storm Malik, and trying to ensure storm Corrie doesn't blow them all down again.

The South side graves are having a new carpet of mulch. It's actually spent hops from local heroes Torrside Brewing. We think they look lovely.

Obviously you have to imagine this scene without the ugly barriers, and with enough hops to actually cover the ground. But you get the picture. More hops are arriving regularly (it's a thirsty town) so I'll post more later.

In other news, we really are trying to move things on with planning, and to keep our hopes up of actually being able to finish the project. Stay with us and don't give up - we're not.

For the geeks #2

Hi there, bespectacled reader.

Well, I tried and tried (and tried) to get Camera#3 working with a SIM card, uploading pics to my website as described previously. A few problems with that:

1. I'm rubbish at soldering. Appalling. So actually constructing the rig was so time-consuming and error-strewn, by the time I got to the software I was already losing the will.

Hell

2. The SIM assembly has very proscriptive power demands. It would run on my desk as long as I used a USB port to supply it, but an actual USB charger made it shriek "Over Voltage" and switch off. Since the thing was going to be powered from a USB charger, this was a showstopper.

3. The SIM card I bought from Three refused to register on the Three network. The O2 SIM from my phone would connect in a heartbeat, so at that point there was nothing wrong with the rig. The Three SIM worked perfectly in a phone. This was infuriating.

4. Once on the network, the software required to upload files to the internet (minicom) is so badly documented, I felt like I was 15 and trying to buy a round, getting no help from the gorillas at the bar, and sarcastic answers, winks and nudges if I asked a question. Basically I don't have the patience to learn the skills required.

So, I decided to improve on Camer#2 by putting it in a specially constructed waterproof enclosure. 

Well, it's a sandwich box. 

Camera#2.1 now has the following upgrades:

• Wired access as well as wireless capability. Plan is to take a laptop once a month, plug in and use WinSCP to download what we have.
• I've protected the 10 metre USB cables, hoping the comms won't degrade over time as in the past.
• I've put magnets on the box so it can be attached easily to the steel which will be in the way of the current camera position. These magnets are proper strong. I plonked it on a radiator in the house and virtually had to use a crowbar to remove it.
• The Raspberry Pi at the heart of this has been beefed up to 64gb on the Micro SD card. That will hold roughly 10,000 photos, in case I'm too bone idle to go and harvest images every month.
• The software has been improved so that the camera only fires every 20 minutes from 9am-4pm in Winter, 8am-5pm in Summer. I'm fed up deleting black images taken during hours of darkness..

Some pics:

Yes, that really is a sandwich box.

I hope to have this installed in the next couple of weeks, more news as I get it. 

I now have a full 5-minute movie of the site since October 2020, but thanks to the GORT (gods of red tape) there's nothing much to look at, unless you like the leaves falling as the seasons change, occasional snow cover, or next door's wandering cat. 

Later, geeks.

The last post

Just read back my last post. How naiive I was. How trusting.

No, we were not allowed to build the road. Once again punched in the kidney by the gods of red tape, curse them all to early retirement.

Despite paying exorbitant monthly fees to the town council for their poxy piece of field, we're not allowed to set foot on it until the conditions for planning permission on the main build are met (or at least some of them). This condition was cleverly added to the lease by - you guessed it - the town council 

Well played, dark forces.

Hopefully the planning authorities will check the check box that needs checking, very soon. Then we'll be underway.

In other news, there is none. Oh wait - there's a chance Lyn will be a town councillor soon. Will that mean she then starts doing everything in her powers to stop the build? Wouldn't that be funny.

More jokes soon