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This is all getting a bit grand designs, better keep Kevin McCloud away from the missus!
Just about to re-submit for a PD barn conversion on our small holding but now need to be out of our current place by the end of February so the landlord can tart it up ready to sell.
With 1 dog, 2 cats, 3 rabbits and growing flock of sheep finding another rental is not going to be easy (been here 10 years and we lamb in the orchard) and I'd rather just go down the static caravan route and live on site.
Anyone gone though the static caravan on a building site route? Not sure how to approach this planning wise baring in mind it will be 2 months until we get a PD decision and we have to be out in 3 so need to act now really.
We should also be lambing in April so will definitely need to be on site then if that has any baring on an application.
Also going to need a container or two for storing stuff. Looks like a bike clear out is due this winter 🙁
Will be chilly.
Whereabouts are you?
Could you build a temporary car port type roof over the static home to keep the worst of the weather off it (and maybe a veranda) & store straw bales on the static roof to keep warmth in? 4" X 4" & Onduline should do. You could maybe use the shelter for the animals after. All sounds abit Joseph & Mary to me.
North Somerset.
Not too bothered about warmth as I was going to get a double glazed static and our current house (farm house originally build in the 1600's and then extended many times) isnt exactly the warmest or the cheapest to run. Probably budget about £5k (have seen well used from self builders for £1500). OH did fancy this when I showed her but I think it's a bit overkill:
Personally I would rather a nice vintage Airstream and then keep it on site afterwards for friends and family or lambing help to stay in, and a nice summer office but a static will be a lot bigger and cheaper for our immediate needs.
A shelter over the top is not a bad idea though, was already planning on cladding any containers with wood to hide them as I'd like to keep a couple on site anyway to lock away tractor bits and stuff. Am used to knocking up temporary shelter for lambing anyway so we could use it for that. We have 2 barns on site currently, one stone one is the one we want to convert, the other is made from old cast iron lamposts (pre-electric) with wriggly tin walls and roof and some very ropey beams held together with bailer band. That currently has 1/3rd of our hay stocks in it.
I am hoping that if we get the planning through this time I can get the sewage treatment plant installed first and plumb the caravan into it.
Be careful - I can only assume it due to having no other space / things to do / need to keep warm but Grad Designs dictates that you'll be sprogged up before the end of the build if you go static van route!
A friend of mine did this whilst rebuilding his house in the village - if he can get it past the NIMBYs there (trust me, a particularly intractable and impossible to please breed) I can't imagine you'd have an issue with temporary planning on a small holding.
You'd probably be done with the build by the time any complaints had worked their way through the system anyway (I used to contract for North Somerset)
Shepherd's hut, Shirley?
Reason we are so far behind is our application to have 3 minor conditions removed took 8 months and 2 formal complaints. Wasn't even any contention to them being lifted (other than by the planning officer who wouldn't tell us why) as the Environment Agency agreed with us.
Just realised my bat survey was done in August 2016 so might now be out of date and need to be re-done before we can re-submit. Another £300 to be told again that we don't have bats and the barn has no suitable bat nesting locations....
So many dodgy people just building stuff or getting permission to build one thing and then going off-piste and building something else or something much bigger and getting away with it. But I am stickler for doing things the right way and it's taking ages and costing a lot 🙁
We did the same, but in a touring caravan. On completion day we moved all our stuff into the leaky garage on-site, then I drove off to the second-hand caravan place and got the biggest and cheapest touring we could find.
Then got the kids, er home of sorts. Contractor was on site within a week on the refurb. I then got a planning application in within a month for the new works. It seemed a particularly wet few months, but the caravan and new awning held out. Good job as I had the awning as a lounge/ office with all my computers and other electricals in there.
Sold the caravan after for only a couple of hundred loss.
Main issues with static will be your water connection and keeping it from freezing. It will require a good dose of looking at. Ive stayed in quite a few double glazed statics and they can be cosy warm in minutes with a decent boiler and rads system. My nhbc inspector built his house in the same way up on the hills of Derbyshire. Probably not the most "fire safe" procedure but he literally filled the void under the caravan with straw bales to aid insulation and to protect the water service.
straw bales under a caravan sounds like a recipe for disaster, should have kept hold of all the wool. Hopefully we will be on the right side of the cold weather and we managed to get away with the exposed pipe in the middle of the field only freezing for a couple of days right in the thick of it last year.
Wondering if I should broach the issue with the planners now or will they not even entertain the idea until we have the PD approved?
Maybe I can suggest a condition is placed that the planning will be granted for a temporary caravan subject to us obtaining the PD permission. Seems fair enough but need to build in some allowance for it to stay if we have to appeal/re-apply again.
Lister & I have a mate who did this. He and his wife were in their van for ~18 months. Straw bales under the van made a difference - as did building a skirt around the thing. Typically his wife got pregnant while they were still living in the van. I can't recall how long the baby was in there, but long enough for us to move from taking the p1$$ out of him to being genuinely sorry for them. I seem to recall it wasn't the cold water feed that played up in the winter, but the waste pipes all backed up repeatedly. We laughed lots.
Can you not park it undr one the barns short term?
Or park it adjacent to a barn then build a tempory extra roof out of OOSB and 2 x 4 so it sits uder a lean to. Could be nice and cosy with the worst of the waether deflected
Portakabin site office / tea room also worth looking at , usually well insulated , you might be able to get a couple with jack legs and put 1 on top of t'other
Well we already have all external walls, a new roof, water and electricity to the barn so hoping it will be pretty quick. Although the oak frame is probably going to scupper those plans. Avoiding any fancy bifolds/sliders and just going with oak framed glazing and french doors all the way down the 11m south elevation. Will be like the Thatchers pub down the road but without the row of smaller windows:
Getting very worried about the McCloud curse now. Off to look up getting the tubes tied!
My sister did this while she and her husband renovated and extended what was effectively a pig sty into a four bedroom house. They planned on having it complete within a year but in the end they lived in it for nearer three years. They then stripped the chassis and have built a 3 bedroom log cabin onto it. It sounds horrific to me but they said it was fine really and not even that cold.
I should also mention that this is in the Algarve. 😀
Get a Yurt. It's a temporary structure so you don't need planning permission.
Shouldn't "technically" need planning for a static as they still have wheels and can be moved if needs be.
McCloud did his one that way albeit with a trailer.
A friend and former work colleague bought a little two-up, two-down cottage in Grittleton many years ago, and he and his wife lived in a tiny two-berth touring ‘van parked round the back while they worked on the house, which involved building an extension on the side to take a new staircase, which he designed and had made, which he installed, and an extension out the back, for the kitchen and an extra bedroom. They knocked the two downstairs rooms into one, and finished the upstairs rooms to sleep in, using a ladder to access them! They were in the caravan for nearly three years, IIRC! Good luck!
We did it when I built our house... Bought a cheap 1980's static for £1200. Lived in it for just over two years (sold it for £1k). First year while we saved money and slowly dismantled the concrete barns onsite. Second year, and a few months, while i built the house.
Went through the 2010 and 2011 winters in it, subzero for weeks and despite being as cold as i have ever been, it was weirdly fun too. We didn't even have a plumbed in toilet and i built a composting toilet, outhouse style, next to the caravan.
We actually had a hard time moving out and into the new, warm, bright, spacious, economical house i built. I think we had become static caravan institutionalised.
We would do it again in a heartbeat, loved it really. Although we didn't have kids then, might be a bit different now
Off the top of my head you can temporarily park and live in a caravan on a building site without requiring planning permssion. If you find the GPDO they’ll be a section in there with the actual provisions.
problem is it's not actually a building site yet..not until we have the PD approved which will give us 1 month to get sorted if it goes through.
Hmm. So it goes back to the Caravan Act 1960, which states you can use live in a caravan on, or on land adjoining a building site which has got permission to do building works, including works that would be permitted development (as these are granted permission by the GPDO).
Building a fence is considered building works, and is permitted by the GPDO (unless your site has some odd restriction on this which i'd thing unlikely). You could theoretically build a fence around/across the site very slowly for the month.
Alternatively, speak to the planning department and explain the situation, they might not care too much if you gain the PD right anyway once the barn conversion permission comes through. And worst case by the time they've issued an enforcement notice you'll have your permission and the breach has disappeared. Depends on your appetite for risk.
^^ What morpho says in his last paragraph.
There is some easing of planning regs for farm workers I think, particularly if living temporarily in a mobile unit.
I've got this lying around looking for a new home...
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Having lived in a static whilst my parents did a build when I was in my teens a can safely say it gets very ‘old’ very quickly. To put s bit of context / caveats on it, what should of been a <1 year demolition and modest and sympathetic new build on the site of a mid wales farm house, turned into a 4 year epic when we found out old part of the farm house was grade two listed. As with old building restoration, the schedule expanded exponentially and if I learned one thing - statics are not a great little big term home.
i was lucky, in that they bought me a cheap old 70’s static for myself so space and being on top of each other wasn’t s probkem, but in the winter you were permanently cold. Now statics have moved on and it wasn’t helped by the fact that the gas fire (the one heat source in the van) had been condemned, but even with an electric heater I regularly woke up with frost or ice on the inside of the windows in the winter. Again, a new van would be better i assume, but breing cold for long periods of time really grinds you down - cold bones, frozen water supply, toilet won’t flush, wearing all the clothes you own all of the time etc
i guess what I’m saying is rent a house whilst the build is happening if you can afford it
I lived in a small motorhome for almost two years - a static caravan would be absolute luxury!
neilc - that looks cool, probably need more rooms and a bathroom for the missus though.
Was up late last night going back through all the documents. There is an uplift on the property relating to outline or detail planning permission (50% increase due to planning to the person that sold it 13 years ago). As part of that I need to give them 3 months notice before submitting an application (outline or detail) so if permission for a caravan comes under that then i would need to notify them now and then put the application in the day we have to move in so that is not going to work.
The route of asking for forgiveness rather than permission might be the only route. Or maybe we can put it on the land if the PD comes through anyway.
We both have full time jobs so our income does not come from the farming which rules out agricultural worker accommodation.
Had a quick look for a suitable lawyer last night and at lunch, found a few to contact as I think it's time we got some proper paid legal advice around how we tackle the planning aspects. I wouldnt mind permission for the caravan triggering the uplift as that would get it out of the way (only applies to the first time).
I doubt we will find somewhere to rent. Buying somewhere cheap is an option but a waste of money and will tie up cash I want for the build.
I bought a 3 bed static caravan when we knocked down our house and rebuilt. It came from a site on the sussex coast and I had it installed and plumbed into my drains and water supply with power from the mains. It was great and did a great job for us, although we moved out on Christmas eve before it got too cold. No planning issues.
I sold it on Ebay for about a grand less than I paid for it.
Andy I know youve mentioned being a stickler for doing things the right way, but you ha e clearly seen the council do anything But. If you don't think any locals will notice or mind, just do what you need to do. I've found out much to my own cost it's easier, cheaper and less stressful to ignore the council buffoons and rely on the planning inspectorate to make the right decision further down the line.
Unless you are a developer and are bunging cash to the case officer you will always come second fiddle. This isn't tin foil hat stuff, but an unfortunate truth..
Also worth getting a planning consultancy on board, they really can smooth the process...
Coming to that conclusion Sui.
Contacted them monday to ask if my bat survey was still valid was told I should get a reply that day...
Tuesday night we submitted anyway, just checked and it has neither been validated or have we been contacted to say there is a problem (ie bat survey). I suspect it will just sit there until next Friday.
Took 8 months to get 3 conditions lifted last year. Case officer replied to one email saying she was going to refuse the application for "other reasons" that were not given on the original conditions and then they lost the letter from the Environment Agency. Ended up with a complaint escalated all the way to the chief exec of the council to get a decision (which was in our favour).
I'd go ahead and start the build but I doubt I can get a self build mortgage until we have the paperwork from the council. I guess I could just start with the cash I have first but I was planning on using the mortgage first and keeping the 50% of the build money I have as cash for quick access when needed.