PP and BR- anyone got any advice?

[Tansie]

Some of you may remember us- we are doing a garage conversion, turning an integral garage into 2/3 living room and 1/3 garage (keeping the up and over door).

We'll obviously need a new window in the new living room, and a new dividing wall between the rooms (no door). Obvs it will have to have a fire rating as it will separate a living room from what remains 'a garage'.

We will need PP. I am 100% sure about this. Before anyone asks!

The Q I have is: Where do BR come into this? At what stage? I will submit my plans/map/drawings/Biodiversity checklist (!) etc to get PP but nowhere am I required to tell the council what my new internal wall will be made of.

2 scenarios:

-I'm supposed somewhere in the application to tell them that the work will comply to Parts whatever of the BR; ('new internal wall will consist of' etc)

-or the Council will come back to us to say Yes, you can have PP providing that your work meets Parts whatever of the BR.

Which will happen? Who makes the BR 'statement'? Them or us? I am confused because some people are saying 'Minor work like this is either done under PP or BR, not both', but what's to stop me, as I have to go down the PP route, making my internal wall out of papier mache? If nowhere am I required to state such things?

My lay mans understanding is that all building work needs br, but only some need full pp. They function independently and do not refer to each other in terms of sign off.

Planners will presume your build meet br, br will presume your work has pp or is under permitted development.

You can do br via council or a private firm, and you can submit initial drawings to br at same time as pp, but obv you run risk that if you have to change plans for planning reasons, you 'll have to change your br plans which will attract a cost.

But as I said, that's a laymans understanding!

Building regs and planning require separate fees and applications to different parts of the council's environment department. They don't cross refer

First sort the planning permission.

Then once that is through you apply for building regs. Speak to the building control officer about whether to make a full plans or a building notice application. You might be able to run planning and br concurrently if you do full plans but there may be no point. Although doing full.plans might be better if you are a novice as you can get it approved and then start work - avoiding any mistakes. A building notice can be put in once you are ready to start work and might be the way to go if you plan to get a builder as he can do the application and organise the visits if you get him to include it in the quote.

Hth

God, I had no idea I had to apply for BR as well as PP! I though BR were something that my builder has to follow, not something I have to apply for. Or it was one of the other, not both!

I can just about handle PP (Lots of help on here- got sidetracked by the planning portal telling me I had to apply for Full Planning not Householder so I was stressing about how many employees I'd have and what the opening hours of my domestic garage conversion would be, and I was out in the rain measuring the size of my plot... til I was correctly advised to ignore what the planning portal was telling me!) but as for BR- no, I have no idea what the ratings of Celotex or double glazing are!

On your other thread I posted a link to the LABC which goes through all the things you need sort and gives basic step by step advice. Have a look and see what you think. It could be quite straightforward.

Often your builder will deal with the BR application if you do a "building notice" application. If you do a "full plans" application it takes longer but then it is all signed off before you start and is less risky if you are a novice.

Check out the link and see what you think!

I did but I hadn't realised it answered my questions!