HIGH POINT
“Getting our planning permission was nice, as was seeing the windows go in. It felt like such a moment; it actually felt like a house rather than just a barn.” – Kat Baxter-Smith
LOW POINT
“Probably the time we spent without windows in the winter with all the elements coming in – it was very muddy, not a fun place to be. And Covid, the effect of increased material costs. It was quite a depressing winter to be building in.” – Tris Baxter-Smith
“Standing there with all this wind and rain coming in. A lot of the build hap- pened last winter and the weather wasn’t great!” – Kat Baxter-Smith
development rights, which allow the conversion of an agricultural building into a residential dwelling. “Neither of us had ever thought about that before,” Tris says. Tris had been hoping to build a bigger barn on the farm – to keep grain dry. However, this meant more obstacles than they had anticipated. “Once you use permitted development rights, that’s it,” Tris explains. “Normally a farm would have permitted development rights to build a barn. But because we used it to build the house, we had to use full planning permission for the barn.”
Despite some extra hoops to jump through,
Tris says it wasn’t onerously costly or difficult. Likewise, should they choose to extend the house in the future – which they plan to – no matter the size they will have to apply for full planning permission.
Although they found the planners to be particularly strict, they understand why: “They’re becoming more aware of people misusing Class Q,” Tris says. “The legislation is there to allow farmers to free up an income stream or enable future generations to stay within the farm by developing buildings.” Class Q guidelines don’t allow for the barn to be demolished and rebuilt in the same footprint, but say the building ‘must be suitable for conversion’ — which is determined by each local authority. They weren’t prepared to take any chances, so with the barn’s foundations and steel beams suitable for conversion, they also explained they would reuse all the wood and attempt to retain the cement fibreboard roofing, subject to Building Regs (although the building inspector later told them this unfortunately wouldn’t be possible). Tris believes the strictness of the guidelines
are frustrating for planning officers, constraining them on various elements. Our planning officer
jan/feb 2023
commented on things she would like kept within the building, and our builder was very quick to say things wouldn’t pass Building Regs” he says. It’s increasingly common for Class Q applications to go through on appeal, which Tris’ land agent friend believes is down to the fact the council isn’t responsible for the appeals process and therefore doesn’t shoulder the responsibility – the situation Tris and Kat found themselves in. “It’s time consuming, it’s stressful, but you just have to get through it,” he says. Aware of the potential problems, the couple chose to do a pre-application, which although not strictly necessary, Kat says proved fruitful. Originally, they hoped to excavate or build higher in order to accommodate a second floor, but they were advised these would never be approved: “that saved us time further down the road.”
As well as the pre-app, Kat and Tris held a meeting with the neighbours to explain what they wanted to do. “We were keen to engage them, so that we knew upfront if there were going to be any serious problems,” explains Tris. “If you leave things to planning it can hold the whole thing up.”
DESIGN & BUILD
Although confined by the barn’s footprint, Tris argues it almost made the design easier. “When you’re essentially given a fixed box to work with, it makes you think a bit more creatively; what’s the most efficient way of filling it with rooms. They enlisted architect Toby Pateman, primarily to put together the full detailed plans, and builder Nick Burles, but Tris did the design himself. Nick assisted, including advising they would be able to include an existing lean-to and include a mezzanine level – Kat says this has “given us loads more space.” “He’s converted barns before – it was really good to have his
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