Listed building consent for extension: feels a bit 'chicken or the egg?'

[Seer]

We've got a Grade II listed cottage, the old part is around 400yo and it has a newer extension which I think was added in the 50s (I think before it was listed).

It has an ancient, leaking wooden conservatory (which the previous owners got permission for).

We'd like to replace the conservatory but ideally with a proper extension that we could use as part of the kitchen.

I've spoken to people at the local planning office several times (never been able to reach the actual Conservation Officer despite calling millions of times) and they said:

1. There's a good chance we'd get consent to replace an old conservatory with a proper extension that's more in keeping with the house. Yay!

1. We'd be best off drawing out some basic plans/ideas and then paying for the CO to do an initial review and give us feedback before we start to develop proper plans.

Soooo, what form should those basic plans take?

It feels a bit paradoxical in that if we get an architect to advise on what we could do (it's not obvious due to chimney stack, big tree, boiler, different floor levels etc) and draw up plans, the CO likely won't be happy with them (or the fact we've got proper architect drawings before speaking to her!) and it will be a waste of time and money.

Whereas if I just sketch out some ideas on my own, they may not be at at realistic or even what would be desirable if we properly understood the best route to take to deal with aforementioned complexities (chimney etc), therefore any feedback on my ideas from the CO would likely become irrelevant once we start working with an architect!

TLDR: how best to approach our CO with our ideas for an extension to replace an old conservatory on our Grade II house?

Thank you!

There is no fee payable on a Listed Building Consent (though there is, of course, on the Planning Application that sometime goes along with it).

Local Planning Authorities are frequently encouraging people to use their pre-application advice services (which are also chargeable) in these cases as a revenue-generating exercise.

They'll tell you that a paid pre-app will make the process smoother when you come to submit the actual LBC application, but what they mean is that it will make their life easier, and will allow them to claw back some of the cost of employing their Conservation Officer.

It feels a bit paradoxical in that if we get an architect to advise on what we could do (it's not obvious due to chimney stack, big tree, boiler, different floor levels etc) and draw up plans, the CO likely won't be happy with them (or the fact we've got proper architect drawings before speaking to her!) and it will be a waste of time and money.

I don't think this follows at all - my advice would be to have an experienced firm of conservation architects draw up even your initial plans, ideally one that has recently obtained listed building consent from your local authority on a number of projects. The CO will take them (and you!) seriously, which is never a bad thing.

My house is nothing like as old or special as yours is. It's not in a conservation area, and it doesn't have anything protected around it. The extension I'm doing is within PD (just). However, I still went for full planning approval and, as part of that, I went through the pre-approval process you are describing. I think there are a lot of advantages to doing so. It's comparatively low cost relative to the price of building work. It gives you a good sense of what the council will/won't accept prior to going for full approval, which can save money on architectural drawings. And it irons out any potential issues at an early stage. In our case, ceiling heights were an issue -the new build has very high ones (4 metres) and we wanted to make sure these would pass. Because our garden slopes, there were numerous places you could have 'counted' the start of the ground floor, some of which would have placed this in PD, and some of which wasn't. We felt it was better to avoid any ambiguity or future problems by being totally upfront from the start.

The other thing that is often worth investing in, as a one-off (it won't change, so can be used in for any further Listed Building Consents in the future) is an Assessment of Significance by a Heritage Consultant.

This will give you a LOT more information about your property than the basic Listing does, and will help inform both your Architect and the CO on which bits are important and how to treat them. If you care about and are interested in your property, it's also often a fascinating document in its own right.

...but it will cost you £several hundred to have prepared.

Cynical viewpoint: if you didn't want your property to cost you lost of money, you shouldn't have bought something with a listing.

"The extension I'm doing is within PD (just). However, I still went for full planning approval and, as part of that, I went through the pre-approval process you are describing."

At risk of drifting off-topic...

Technically, the Local Planning Authority should not have accepted the application for Full Planning Approval on work that fell within the scope of PD. It is improper (and, indeed, illegal) of them to have done so.

What they should have done (if you applied for it) is to provide a Lawful Development Certificate, which (as the name suggests), is basically just a certificate confirming that no Planning Permission is required.

If you're employing a (competent) architect or designer, then even an LDC is a waste of time and money in most circumstances, as they should know the rules themselves (and carry Professional Indemnity Insurance if they get it wrong).

This is so helpful, thanks all!

sensus that sounds like a great thing to do! We are v interested in the history of the house so it would be a worthwhile investment regardless of any benefit to the planning application.

virginia ah, fab! I'd obviously picked up a completely wrong impression from somewhere re approaching the CO with an architect's drawings first!

whisky that's helpful to know that it's not just us with pesky listed houses that it's useful to do a pre-planning application for!

So it sounds as though working with an architect will be a wise initial step after all. Any suggestions as to how we find a good one locally who is experienced with listed buildings please?

The RIBA (Royal Institue of British Architects) website lists chartered architects in your area, along with their specialties.

But if you're interested in using a Historic Building Consultant (who are far thinner on the ground), I'd be inclined to find one of those, first (try the Institute of Historic Building Conservation, who maintain a list of accredited practitioners), then ask them to suggest an architect they know and trust.

Do be warned that both HBC's and Heritage Architects, along with Archaeologists and Ecologists, where building work is concerned, do have a tendency to forget who is paying their bills. They frequently need reminding that it's you, as their client, whose best interests they should be representing so far as possible, not those of building (or the bats, or the badgers, in the case of Ecologists)

sensus - I may well have got it wrong! From memory, it was questionable whether it was in PD or not. It would depend on a load of technicalities about where you measured the floor level. However, I may be wrong -possibly it was just outside of PD? I am no expert, as you can probably tell!

I do know that an issue for us was that, because of DH's professional position, it was important that there was absolutely no embarrassment with any accusation of improper or inadequate PP!

Start with a quick Google search of "conservation architects + [your local area]", and have a browse through their recent projects. Then if your council has an online database of planning / listed building consent applications, you can look through applications similar to yours, find out whether or not they were successful, and identify the architects involved. That's what worked for us, anyway!

I'm so glad I posted here now, this has been so helpful.

This might sound like a silly question but could I expect an experienced architect who understands conservation and the local area to have a good idea of what the CO is likely to give consent for on my house - and therefore draw plans accordingly?

To a certain extent, yes, but each case is unique, and each local authority and CO will have their own attitude to particular works, so 100% certainty is impossible. Although having a good relationship with the CO is important, you shouldn't go overboard in anticipating their objections to such an extent that you compromise what you really want out of the project - a project that you're paying for, on a house that you own! That's the whole point of the pre-app process - you and your architect give your best shot at a plan that marries your needs with the history of the building and relevant legislation, the CO interprets that plan in relation to their local policies according to their judgement, and with a little luck you reach a negotiated position that both sides can live with.

virginia, thank you. And you're right - I have been approaching this focusing more on pleasing the CO than us!

I'm so grateful that we might even have a chance of extending the house (being that it's listed) that I'm being all tentative and apologetic about it.

Our council doesn't charge for pre-application process for listed buildings. I've just been and checked because we submitted one the other day. However, the CO pretty much won't discuss anything with us informally so I don't know whether that's why.

I empathise though, it's hard to know where to go first. We are in a similar conundrum.

Good to have some company on this journey into the unknown, tentative!

Did you use an architect for your pre-planning application as is being suggested here?

Tentative's Council are in the minority if they are still not charging for pre-app. Most do these days.

Be aware that whether or not you pay for it, though, pre-application advice will always be equivocal, by its very nature.

They will give you a statement of the relevant policies; if you're lucky they will give you an interpretation of how they believed those policies apply to your proposal, and if you're really lucky, they might give you an indication of whether they think your proposal is likely to be supported, overall.

But every Planning Officer knows that ultimately they are unable to give any promises... at the end of the day, things can happen that force an application in front of the Planning Committee, and elected Members can take the most random and irrational decisions, no matter what they are advised by their professional Officers. For this reason, any professional Officer would be an idiot to make any sort of strong commitment in writing at the pre-app stage.

I just asked DH @Sensus, and he said we had to get permission because the extension was within a metre of a boundary and over 3 metres high, so not permitted development. So I was talking rot in my earlier post!

We haven't Seer because we're testing the waters with a minor internal project for which we need listed building consent so we've submitted drawings done by us, some technical details etc. We need to do something with our extension though so it is something we're looking into and I will be watching with great interest!

Goodness sensus! Why do they even have the pre-app step then? Just so the most outlandish plans can be killed at that stage?

According to DH, it's supposed to stop people wasting money on putting together expensive applications for things that will obviously be refused, and also to prevent people applying unnecessarily for planning when not needed.

I think some architects like it (ours did) because it gives them a bit of certainty.

Alternatively (or rather additionally):

It's because the Planning system is close to meltdown due to lack of resources.

On the one hand, it gives Local Authorities the chance to earn more revenue.

On the other, they have a statutory duty to determine formal Planning applications within 8 or 12 weeks (depending on whether it's classed as a minor or major application). The pre-app process gives them more time to line up the information and assess the proposal from their side.

Make no mistake; the pre-application process is more in the LPA's interest than it is in yours.

Certainly, the pre-app process helps stop people wasting money on complete no-hope applications, but before it was introduced, every Local Authority gave free advice via Duty Planning Officers, to everyone, to overcome that problem. It was turned into a chargeable, semi-formal application because and only because Local Authorities couldn't sustain that level of service.

Oh, I didn't mean to suggest you weren't totally right about the resource thing Sensus. Haven't planning departments had budgets slashed by around 50% in many places?

Thanks sensus and whisky, it sounds like it would be wise to keep my hopes fairly low on anything amazingly insightful coming out of the pre-app then!

Another thing whilst I've got you clever lot... it's occurred to me that a two story extension could work well in that place. Would it be worth at least trying to get consent for that?

If so, would it be possible to build the first storey soonish and then the second storey at a later date? Would the original consent still be valid?

Thank you!

Local Authorities are under huge pressure all round, of course.

Its frustrating that Planning fees have just a few days ago been increased by 20% (against background inflation at 4%, remember), and fees introduced on a large number of applications that were previously free, on the justification of a White Paper saying that more Planning resources were needed to help free up the housing shortage situation... yet the additional revenues generated by these increases don't necessarily go to the Planning departments, they go in to a general pot of money that the Authorities can spend how and where they want.

But sorry... we're drifting well off-topic - none of this is of the slightest interest to Seer, I'm sure!

👋 I'm an architect and am working on a project similar to yours at the moment- the cottage isn't listed but is in a very restrained conservation area (has many restrictions) as it's a picture perfect AND is in a national park. We are removing a nasty 70's extension and leaky timber conservatory and replacing with a very modern extension with lots of glazing.

The process for us was client approached me and we roughed out some ideas (I had already researched the local restrictions) which I then discussed with the conservation officer and we refined them to work with their requirements and then came up with a final design which we submitted for planning, we had to make a minor adjustment following this to make the conservation officer happy (we just had to send amended drawings, no extra fees) and then we got planning permission subject to a few conditions (we have to send samples of the materials to be approved)
We are now working on the final construction drawings for the contractor and I've been to agree details with the specialist glazing company today.
Both the client and I are now getting excited as it's all starting to come together, after quite a long paperwork process

I rarely bother with pre-apps these days as they aren't very useful, expensive and are not binding. Usually conservation officers will have a chat with you anyway, which is just as useful.