The new project

Funny you should say that but there are some big oaks at the top of the garden, just over the boundary. I'll be dropping a note through to see if they want to remove them (fat chance!)...

 

Yes TPOs are only on specific trees but you can still work on them with permission. They’re not mine anyway so very long odds they’ll change without some very strong winds!

 

Yes I saw that OPM notice earlier in the year. Not very good!

 

This is just a cross-ref for me - New kitchen and bathroom

 

Pics of current and future layout...

 

Grr, planning have placed a pre-condition of having sustainable drainage system (SuDS). Funnily enough it was something that I was considering but didn't do anything about due to cost but now it looks as though I have no choice!

 

Actually, in this borough the council pass just about anything! It's one of the problems people have! Major redevelopment of the town is happening and anything goes. My property has a risk of surface flooding (although it never has) so it triggered some pre-condition act brought in last year.
I called up the named planning officer and she actually knew the application straight away and was very helpful and put me in touch with their drainage engineer who was also very helpful! I was flabbergasted! Just wish for the sake of a single sentence of the letter they sent they could have saved me two phone calls and their time.

 

Have they told you to stick in a pond?

 

Preference is a soakaway but a pond was mentioned! As was a rain garden and filtering through planters...

 

Have just realised that I had a flood risk report done as a part of the purchase and it came back with groundwater being moderate-high... I'm trying to get out of the SuDS report arguing this is not suitable for area with high groundwater but am happy to run the additional run off via a control valve of rain garden arrangement. Fingers crossed!

 

Surely it wouldn't be too expensive or difficult to have the rain water gutters channeled to an area of the garden where you can have a rain garden. It just needs to be a slightly sunken flower bed with a gravel (soakaway) base and topsoil for the flowers.

As we don't have mains drainage, all our rain water runoff from the building goes into land drains. I haven't the faintest idea where those land drains go but they were originally porous clay pipes that probably don't do anything now. When it rains the drains fill up, never to the top, and soak away somewhere. There are no soggy parts of the garden.