One
A little bit of background.
Actually, ‘Sarah & Guy Build A Shed’ is probably pushing it just a bit at the moment… ‘Sarah & Guy Want To Build A Shed But Are Completely Thwarted By Planners’ would be closer to the truth… And it seemed such a good idea when we started…
Way back, in the depths of winter, as I was gently recovering from a delicate bout of gastric flu, Guy announced that he would like to move in with me. Given my state of health at the time (rampant trots, severe weight loss and extreme crankiness), I can only assume that he presumed I was going to pop my clogs and he’d be already moved in to have the house to himself. Fair enough, I thought… Anyway, it seemed churlish to turn him down, so we decided that was it – we would Move In Together. Except of course I’m already here, so really it was more a case of we would Move In Here. Besides, we’ve been married for over a year now and we’re still talking, so it’s obviously going to be ok…
Then we got down to the practicalities. As in 7 guitars, 8 melodeons, one dog, hundreds of books, 48 pairs of shoes (him, not me, I would like to point out) and a rather fine CD collection. Where to put everything? Seems stupid to be cramped when we have all this lovely large garden to play with. Easy then – we’ll just put another shed in the garden. Not a ‘shed’ exactly, more of a summer house – with French doors, an open verandah, storage space for the extra furniture at the back, nice wooden floor, curtains… if anybody ever comes to stay (Sarah and Vincent do, but as we make them work like dogs every time they turn up, it’s debateable whether they’ll ever come again) we can put up the spare iron bedstead in the new shed and they can sleep in comfort in a proper bed… Ooh, the plans!
We looked at Keith the Shed’s website and chose our shed. We mocked up what it would look like when we had re-designed it (Keith loves us really). Don’t panic – the windows will be the same colour as the rest of it eventually.
and pasted it onto the bit of garden where it will go… Once the doors are the right colour we won’t even know it’s there…
Knowing that when we wanted to put the pool cabin up we needed planning, we decided to do things properly this time and (a) build it where it wouldn’t need planning and then (b) just check with the Planning Department.
So we wrote them a very nice letter saying ‘this is the shed we want to put in our garden it’s ok isn’t it?’ And they wrote a very nice letter saying ‘it would be if your garden was a garden but it isn’t, it’s scrubland so no you can’t’. Er, what? We read the letter several times, and even tried reading it upside down, but it still didn’t make any sense. When I bought the house 8 years ago it had a garden. It still has a garden. My neighbour says it’s had a garden for 24 years. Guy volunteered (probably because he knew I would Get Cross And Hit Somebody) to go and see the planner, who said that it was a ‘very interesting case’ and ‘not one he’d come across before’. Oh triffic. We have a planner who just goes round looking for ‘interesting cases’. According to him, the garden is technically scrubland, and we shouldn’t even have been mowing it. Let alone putting sheds on it. Bugger. He told us that we would have to apply for full scale planning permission for ‘change of use’ from scrubland to garden.
And wait.
Achieved so far: Nothing. Zilch. Not a thing.
Letters written: Just the one.
Hours worked: About half, when we naively thought we could just build a shed and carefully marked out the area with cute little pegs and bits of string. They’ve now been there so long the squirrels have dug up all the pegs and eaten the string.
Shed Plans: Two so far. One without storage and then one (my bright idea) with built in storage for all the furniture we won’t have room for but don’t want to throw out in case we move in ten years time and Want It Again.
Gin bottles: Probably only 1 so far. I’ve discovered that drink is a major no-no for me healthwise, so I try very hard not to. However, the day of the letter from the planners remains a bit of a blur, so I guess I had a smallish glass of something…
Plan: Get a planning application in!
Actually, ‘Sarah & Guy Build A Shed’ is probably pushing it just a bit at the moment… ‘Sarah & Guy Want To Build A Shed But Are Completely Thwarted By Planners’ would be closer to the truth… And it seemed such a good idea when we started…
Way back, in the depths of winter, as I was gently recovering from a delicate bout of gastric flu, Guy announced that he would like to move in with me. Given my state of health at the time (rampant trots, severe weight loss and extreme crankiness), I can only assume that he presumed I was going to pop my clogs and he’d be already moved in to have the house to himself. Fair enough, I thought… Anyway, it seemed churlish to turn him down, so we decided that was it – we would Move In Together. Except of course I’m already here, so really it was more a case of we would Move In Here. Besides, we’ve been married for over a year now and we’re still talking, so it’s obviously going to be ok…
Then we got down to the practicalities. As in 7 guitars, 8 melodeons, one dog, hundreds of books, 48 pairs of shoes (him, not me, I would like to point out) and a rather fine CD collection. Where to put everything? Seems stupid to be cramped when we have all this lovely large garden to play with. Easy then – we’ll just put another shed in the garden. Not a ‘shed’ exactly, more of a summer house – with French doors, an open verandah, storage space for the extra furniture at the back, nice wooden floor, curtains… if anybody ever comes to stay (Sarah and Vincent do, but as we make them work like dogs every time they turn up, it’s debateable whether they’ll ever come again) we can put up the spare iron bedstead in the new shed and they can sleep in comfort in a proper bed… Ooh, the plans!
We looked at Keith the Shed’s website and chose our shed. We mocked up what it would look like when we had re-designed it (Keith loves us really). Don’t panic – the windows will be the same colour as the rest of it eventually.
and pasted it onto the bit of garden where it will go… Once the doors are the right colour we won’t even know it’s there…
Knowing that when we wanted to put the pool cabin up we needed planning, we decided to do things properly this time and (a) build it where it wouldn’t need planning and then (b) just check with the Planning Department.
So we wrote them a very nice letter saying ‘this is the shed we want to put in our garden it’s ok isn’t it?’ And they wrote a very nice letter saying ‘it would be if your garden was a garden but it isn’t, it’s scrubland so no you can’t’. Er, what? We read the letter several times, and even tried reading it upside down, but it still didn’t make any sense. When I bought the house 8 years ago it had a garden. It still has a garden. My neighbour says it’s had a garden for 24 years. Guy volunteered (probably because he knew I would Get Cross And Hit Somebody) to go and see the planner, who said that it was a ‘very interesting case’ and ‘not one he’d come across before’. Oh triffic. We have a planner who just goes round looking for ‘interesting cases’. According to him, the garden is technically scrubland, and we shouldn’t even have been mowing it. Let alone putting sheds on it. Bugger. He told us that we would have to apply for full scale planning permission for ‘change of use’ from scrubland to garden.
And wait.
Achieved so far: Nothing. Zilch. Not a thing.
Letters written: Just the one.
Hours worked: About half, when we naively thought we could just build a shed and carefully marked out the area with cute little pegs and bits of string. They’ve now been there so long the squirrels have dug up all the pegs and eaten the string.
Shed Plans: Two so far. One without storage and then one (my bright idea) with built in storage for all the furniture we won’t have room for but don’t want to throw out in case we move in ten years time and Want It Again.
Gin bottles: Probably only 1 so far. I’ve discovered that drink is a major no-no for me healthwise, so I try very hard not to. However, the day of the letter from the planners remains a bit of a blur, so I guess I had a smallish glass of something…
Plan: Get a planning application in!
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