Six years ago, we jumped through the usual blazing hoops for the Conservation Officer. Our application involved 15 metres of the adjoining field to be allowed for parking off-road.
Our property is a 16th Century black-and-white, at the end of a single track lane which also serves as a Public Footpath. Grade II Listed, while not quite the oldest in the village, it is certainly one of the most photogenic, second only to the 13th Century Church. Images of our cottage are regularly used in Local Planning Documents and brochures.
A key sticking-point with the Conservation Officers was that we should not spoil the setting of the property, it being in the Medieval Settlement within the village history. CGi’s (computer generated images) persuaded them that the views of our cottage were not compromised from all approaches and viewpoints. To the side and rear of our old cottage, the ground rises. Our permission was eventually granted, with the Condition that we excavate the area, to lower the car park by almost a metre.
An enormous cost over and above our budget, nevertheless we complied, and in doing so, ensured that all passers-by, neighbours, ramblers and photograph-takers could still enjoy an unspoilt view of the cottage and setting. This is known as Community Value.
During the site-meetings, I constantly asked the Conservation Officer what guarantee the Planners could give that our view from the property would remain as it is. They couldn’t.
And hence, if you are considering the purchase of such a property – Listed, that is – have a good look at your surroundings. Is the outlook from your windows likely to change? If, at any point, you have to provide a Heritage Statement in support of any proposal for your Listed Property, you will have to demonstrate the Communal benefit of your proposal, i.e, how it affects the community’s enjoyment of your wonderful building.
Notwithstanding the half-a-dozen-or-so multi-coloured wheelie bins that will blight any medieval setting, or the 16th Century double yellow lines they may paint around you, since our efforts, consider the following, should you wish to join me in making your blood boil:
The natural, and inviting, grassed splay at our lane’s junction with the road was overnight narrowed by the local Council with the installation of dropped kerbs (brailled for the blind) and hard pavements.
On the skyline, the erection of twelve upmarket houses on the hill opposite changed the view forever. Once the flightpath of our barn owl, we now see the blinding reflection of the hard roofing tiles in the evening sun, and what was once a silhouette of trees, now the illumination from bedroom windows.
To the rear, new neighbours have removed several tall Leylandii. Our light has improved, but also the view, now directly over their rear garden and beyond.
On the lane, the removal of a “tree” and a new bare telegraph pole has exposed us in all our glory from afar. The new neighbours have increased their parking spaces by going deeper into their front garden, and a section of hedge removed.
In our idyllic setting, and we are indeed lucky, I think to myself every morning as I open the blinds, our one outlook – the one that makes it all special – is about to be compromised also. Our outlook to the front, beyond the public footpath, is a meandering stream through pastureland that goes back to the Domesday Book. A flood plain.
Having paid three times the estimate for it, the new owner has, over a period of time, sanitised the ground in preparation for God knows what. A stockade fence is now our immediate intrusion, beyond the stream which has been cleared and scarified of all surrounding flora habitat. The ancient dead willows have been cleared, to the loss of wildlife. The pasture has been repeatedly mown, resembling parkland. No longer the barn owl quartering the rough grass; no longer a preening-spot favoured by the egrets. The kingfisher no longer seen. A Bonfire Night bonfire & pyrotechnics saw off the deer, not spotted since.
A few months ago, the owner instructed a wholesale archaeological dig. His intentions are for some sort of rural classroom on the site. Que sera, sera.
I’m now a realist and still learning the hard way, and had I a crystal ball at the time, I would have taken great pleasure six years ago in giving the Conservation Officer a squint at what was to come as she made her demands. So, when you’re up in the bedroom viewing some beautiful old beamed cottage and looking out and beyond, use your imagination of what that view might be in the future, (in our case a mere six years) before you make your own plans for isolated bliss.
If they build a multi-storey car-park opposite, the Conservation Officer’s view will not change as he/she makes even more demands as the gem we’ve got left shrinks smaller and smaller within our new 24th Century surroundings, while our own view vanishes before our very eyes.
Busby
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