has anyone used PlanningPortal.gov.uk?

[mckenzie]

We are looking at a house with a view to buying it but the purchase would be on condition that we get planning permission for an upstairs extension. The council concerned have suggested that we use this website initially but either I'm being very thick or it's not as easy as it looks. The council man told me to use the interactive house but I can't see quite what I'm suppose to do with it! Any help or advice gratefully received.

TIA

It's in the Green Belt. That makes a difference. Most Councils have a guideline for the amount of development considered to be a 'proportionate addition' to the original property in the Green Belt as it is far more restricted. It's usually around 30% of volume, though some use floor space, some have different percentages, some look at each on merit.

The original owners have already had a fairly massive single storey extension, although as the house is also fairly massive, in percentage terms it may not get to the 30% mark. You're seeking that amount of floor space again, plus roof. That's another big extension. It may be deemed a 'disproportionate addition' and therefore unacceptable. Nothing to do with neighbours, appearance, anything and everything to do with limiting the scale of development in the Green Belt - a principle which has been established in the planning system for years, and in its current form, since 1986.

I would definitely apply and see what happens.

I don't think the council will be able to recommend you an architect - this goes against their guidelines, as I understand it. DSis tells me that she can confirm that their architect of choice has a good reputation, but she can't actually recommend anyone in the first place.

We received an offer on our place that was conditional on the buyers getting pp - we rejected it outright as a conditional offer was worthless to us.

It meant that we had no certainty as to whether we could offer on anything else and we felt that an outstanding planning permission application on the property might put off any other buyer.

So you may want to sound out the existing owners (and their onward plans) before you start incurring costs as they may not be open to accepting any sort of conditional offer.

Good luck!

GrendelsMum is right. It would be lovely if planners could recommend Architects but they cannot.

Hertfordshire is a bit too far for me :( (I prefer domestic work) however you can locate a local practice here: Find An Architect

thanks very much for the comments. I didn't mean that we would put an offer in to the sellers conditional on the pp hbhb, I just meant that for us, the purchase would be conditional on the pp so we would need to be certain we would get it before we put an offer in. DH went to see the owner last night and has explained fully our situation and he is happy to support our pp request as we are the only prospective buyers he has right now.
So, someone said that we didn't need an architect to draw up plans for pp approval as long as our drawings were to scale so we are going to try using the drawings on the estate agents website and add the proposed extension and apply. Fingers crossed.