Lavingham Planning Consultants

Planning and Development Specialists in Yorkshire and the North East

Our news

Building on Brownfield sites, can digital tools help?

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The National Housing Federation has recently showcased its tool for highlighting over 17,000 brownfield sites, totalling 27,700 hectares and potentially providing land for nearly 1 million homes.

This digital tool has been welcomed as a great way of seeing brownfield sites, but hasn’t considered some of the land that is not publicly owned or some parcels of land that are no longer available due to local plans being amended and updated.

The National Federation of Builders (NFB) have welcomed the provision of the tool as a potential to help tackle the housing crisis but are keen to for it to be used with caution and can help Local Authorities to see the potential of sites within their areas.

It will be interesting to see how these tools develop and help provide LAs, private developers and planners with options on sites in their areas and potentially achieve options on these instead of venturing onto green field sites.

We work with Local Authorities and private developers to look at land potential and can provide a wide range of services to assist with their assessment and future planning application options.

For more information, please contact us at info@lavingham.com or send us a message via our social media platforms.

 

How do I know if my barn conversion will need planning permission or not?

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We are often asked many questions about planning permission, and unfortunately a Yes or No is not always the answer. Of course we would always advise getting professional support when submitting a planning application on a range of options.

One area we often speak to our clients about is ‘what permissions are needed for barn conversions.’

Here are some of the situations where your planned barn conversion will not be permitted development and will still need planning permission:

  • if it is in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB)
  • if it is a listed building
  • if it isn’t on an agricultural unit (e.g. if the barn is in a garden or paddock rather than on a farm).

Outside these rules, there are numerous grey areas to find out about.  We would be able to advise you on whether your planned conversion is permitted development or not.

Interested in finding out more?

For more information, please contact us at info@lavingham.com or send us a message via our social media platforms.

 

We could be your planning specialists, come and say Hello!

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We are town and rural planning and development specialists.

We have been in business for the last two years but have developed a huge amount of experience as our principle, Andrew Cunningham, has spent 10 years of his professional life working in North Yorkshire in a local authority as part of their planning team.

In addition, to this varied experience, Andrew also holds an MSc in Town Planning and is a full member of the Royal Town Planning Institute. This experience, qualifications and excellent local authority knowledge of handling the full range of planning application types is a perfect way to ensure that your planning application is managed through the complex and increasingly challenging planning system.

Andrew set up Lavingham Planning Consultants to apply his specialist knowledge of planning particularly in a

  • rural
  • urban
  • heritage context

to provide comprehensive, good value advice, tailored to client’s needs, to achieve the best possible outcome for clients, hopefully adding value to their property, portfolio or land holding.

We are based in North Yorkshire but engage with clients throughout the UK.

We do not charge a fee for an initial local site visit, or a telephone or email consultation about your development proposal. So please do contact us via our social media platforms, give us a call or drop us an email, with your enquiry!

Why are we different?

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What can we offer you that no other planning consultant can?

  • Honesty
  • Integrity
  • Results

These are just three of the commitments we offer to our clients as we care as much about your project as you do!

Honesty – We are sure all of our colleagues around the UK are honest and above board, as are we. But we believe in being honest and realistic with our clients about their projects and don’t offer to play the planning system as if it were a poker game. We know our planning regulations well and as previously being part of the planning system with our local District Council for a number of years we do feel we have an insight into how the Council thinks, operates and makes informed decisions.

Integrity – As the definition states – ‘good character, principles, ethics, morals, righteousness, morality, right-mindedness, virtue, decency, fairness, sincerity etc’. We tick all of those boxes. We are always totally 100% behind your project from the beginning all the way to the end, whilst keeping your needs in mind.

Results – We do believe in our results! In two years, we have been involved in over 79 planning projects and have 98% success record. We think that is worth shouting about!

If you would like to work with us, then please do get in touch, our website will tell you all about the type of work we do! Go to www.lavingham.com and consider us for your next project!