Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Whart have you bodged up today

Thanks Peter - that is kind of you to say so. It helps that Teddy is reasonably patient. I am allowed to lift a foreleg and hold it in the air with my own leg while I clip his leg pits. I also helps that I have been doing my own clipping for the best part of 30 years.

We are in a zone classified as a "park" with our house in the mountains. We had to have approval of 3 different authorities just to do a small roof extension to stop rain going down our cellar steps and to put up a carport. The house is only about 50 years old.

At least now the cellar is dry, after 50 years of being damp, and we have a shelter for the cars in the next hail storm. Climate change seems to be bringing quite a few hail storms in the last two, and presumably future, summers.

PS. Our house near the lake is also in a heritage area being in the historic part of town. We can't do anything with that which would alter the outside appearance and I would hate to ever have to do any serious work inside. This house shows up in a property survey map from the early 1700s but it was probably here, at least in part, long before that. It has some indications that it once may have been a tower as part of the towns defence works which, as the town expanded, then became occupied as a residence. The main walls are about about 60 cm (2 foot) thick up at the second floor. At that level there is a door arch on what was once an external wall. It could have been the original entrance via external stars or a ladder.

I often think is would be wonderful to be able to go back in time to see what it was like say 1,000 years ago.

Living in an AONB area of oustanding natural beauty always comes at a price as many have found out to their cost down here trying to cut corners in their renovations, it's the only way to preserve the area tbh I don't have a problem with it.

Numerous areas in and around the north east that are conservation status. I've got a job starting soon to renovate 8 sash and case windows, it keeps me in work but also keeps alive the traditional skills required, this is good, however in a perfect world monies would be available to fund the additional cost difference between say a UPVC and traditional sash window.

Trinity College Cambridge owns the land around us. Right now with COVID they have got through plans for roughly 1000 houses in & around the village with no infra structure improvement save a kindergarden. This is because the planning committee doesn't meet & the planning officer alone can approve plans.
This despite on locally to 2 of the 3 schemes.
The third is much smaller & in keeping with the village.

In this area we are supposed to use one of an approved range of colours for the outside of the house, traditional style windows and shutters (the material use of wood is not enforced) and traditional roofing materials (mainly semi rounded terracotta tiles, but stone, serpentine not slate, would also be ok).

We have a house near us that has been reconstructed with a flat tile roof (shingle style), folding metal shutters, and has been finished on the outside with a semi gloss plastering that is normally used internally in bathrooms. This was all approved in the last days of the administration of a mayor who was locally known as Mr. 10%. Who knows why

Serves them right that they have shutters that bang in the wind and constantly have problems with the ingress of water from the roof, not to mention the streaks of pigeon dermot down the face of the shiny finish.

Our village is a Conservation Area. Yellow lines are not allowed on the road so everyone parks there.

My local village is a conservation area ... however for a number of years the local councillor (not the sharpest knife in the drawer) personally disliked the whole idea of conservation as it stopped his mates doing whatever they wanted to their houses.

At the time there was an unspoken 'rule' that the local councillor for an area would be indulged in decision making (as it gave them all wiggle-room on policy that they could use to gain favour and enhance their chances of re-election ...so they all went along). He used this to systematically undermine the conservation rules (allowing pvc modern design windows, tile roofs and even building modern bungalows in the vegetable gardens behind the traditional houses amongst other things) ... it's still an attractive village, but the architectural integrity has been compromised by one ignorant person and the weakness of the Local Council's planning system ... the long term worry being that some future incumbent will use the damage done to push that the village no longer deserves conservation status to allow a feeding frenzy by local developers should they see it as being in their short term interest.

Our architectural heritage needs protecting. The overwhelming majority of modern developers are mindless money-grabbers who will always go for the low quality 'cookie-cutter' approach over doing the right thing if there's an extra pound in it for them.

K

There are,however some really stupid rules - Our local church is "Listed" - we wanted to re-design the gates(Set them back) so people would not be stepping out directly on to a road. The wall and gates were built in the early 1970's and are plain concrete block construction --enter the Heritage officer -- ah! the walls are part of the "Curtilage" of the building so they too are listed and cannot be altered!!!!

Absolute "Nuts" - crazy from a safety point of view, but they arent for turning and we have to go to court!

I deal with heritage building works - we got into trouble a few years back putting hand made lead hoppers onto a building that matched the originals on another elevation. They weren't acceptable because its what's on the building on the day it was listed that counts - in this case they wanted black upvc gutters.

We did get them to see sense in the end, but some conservation officers seem to delight in making life as difficult as possible for the building contractor.