Planning laws/self build question - all that jazz part 1

[retrodave]

Hello all, and thanks in advance for reading this. Firstly, does anyone know where I can get hold of the actual statements of law which deals with planning permission and how it is granted/what the correct ‘ingredients’ are for a successful application (re land type, proximity to other housing, previous applications etc)

[buildersmate]

The basis of planning law is the Town & County Planning Act. This has been re-invented many times over the years. It doesn't really help you much.
Central Government determines high level policy, but local authorities determine specific policies which are published in a Local Plan. Every planning department has one of these and it determines the specific policies by which planning decisions are made. This is the one for Oxford City (which is nowhere near where I live).
http://www.oxford.gov...d_Local_Plan_occw.htm
Section 7 deals with housing policy - look at it as an example and you will hopefully see what I mean. You can find the one applicable to your area on the web - they are all there.
The general gist under which things work is that central Government sets targets for new housing requirements by county, and it is up to each planning area to identify suitable sites within that area for future housing needs. This is of no help to you - I am talking big developers here - who try and second guess where these areas are and buy up options on huge swathes of land well in advance. General preference is for redevelopment of previously developed land - so-called brownfield sites.
Every planning authority determines existing 'settlement areas' in their plan - these are clearly bounded and cover every significant city/town and some smaller settlements - big villages perhaps. The general policy inside these is that new development is permitted subject to other policies being met. Outside these areas is 'countryside'.
Continued

[buildersmate]

In countryside, the general principle is that new development will not be permitted. There are exceptions to this - new housing for agricultural workers, one of one rplacement dwellings, re-use of redundant farm buildings as houses (sometimes!). I imagine from the flavour of your question that are looking at 'countryside' - in which case the obstacles are significant.
You need to get hold of the local plan for your area, study it and see what sort of policies your area has. Look at successful applicants of the type you envisage, read the application and see what the planning officer says in assessing the application. This is how you become a planning 'expert'. There is a good book by Roy Spiers (called How to Obtain Planning Permission or something similar) on understanding this stuff. It takes many months of trial and error.
I will answer your other question specifically. Good luck.

[retrodave]

Builders mate - top info - thank you very much. It's just massively difficult isn't it!? The problem is that I want a sizeable plot - not 25m by 16m or whatever. To buy an acre of brown field is going to cost around 100 - 250k - without PP. So A - I wouldn't be able to buy it as you cannot mortgage land and B - even if I could buy it, it's a huge amount of money to spend on something that may not and probably won't even happen anyway. Do you know of any good websites which have brownfield sites for sale? I'll look for the local plan - thanks very much BM.

[Nosha123]

personally I wouldnt buy brownfield land - with the intention to develop on it later - too risky in my mind... especially if you are not familiar with planning laws etc.

There are several companies that sell small parts of brownfield land as investments - they try to get 100 people to each buy 1 100th of the land - then when planning is granted the value of the land increases and is sold to developers.

I have heard this is a bit of a scam.. a bit like holiday shares

[buildersmate]

I agree that it isn't brownfield land you are looking for - that is bought up by developers to split into much smaller plots - hence the price tag. A former redundant woodyard close to where I live was redeveloped in the 1980s - it is in countryside by virtue of being in a small village that has not defined settlement boundary around it - so it is all classified as 'countryside. That sort of site was split into 20 houses.
When I was looking for my own site I remember looking at a rural former coach operators yard of about quarter acre - that has a single house on it now.

I suspect that you are trying to buy in countryside. As a mentioned before, the general policy is that new residential development is not permitted in countryside. The sort of larger plots you are looking for do exist but there is a 'market price' for everything. A typical example would be a small bungalow in a few acres. Such properties can be enlarged or demolished / rebuilt bigger. Unfortunately there are quite a few people on the same trek - I was one of them. So the prices are very different from the price of pure agricultural land (or even woodland) which you will know sells from around £5k per acre.
The biggest financial gains are obtained from managing to pursuade the planning authorities to grant permission on such land - as the guy did in the New Forest mentioned by Jake in your other thread. But it isn't simple or reliable.
It takes a lot of learning to become good at this, and I do recommend buying a book if you are serious about it. This is it - it helped me a lot in the early days.
http://www.amazon.co....n-Speer/dp/095334892X

[buildersmate]

You asked about websites. Plotsearch is one, Plotfinder is another. I did subscribe to one during my own search (which lasted 2 years). But I did much, much more by touring around - just looking for potential sites that might be possible.

[retrodave]

Thanks again mate. I've just bought that book.

[tamborine]

Planning etc here:

http://www.direct.gov...ty/Planning/index.htm