Durrants Beccles were glad to help support and sponsor this year’s Beccles Christmas light switch on!
The annual event welcomes over 7000 people into the town to enjoy the start of the festive season.
Durrants Beccles office was open as always, and our mulled wine and hot mince pies were welcomed by clients old and new.
Saturday 19th November was Halesworth’s annual Christmas Lights switch-on.
The event is organised and run by Durrants’ very own Mother Christmas, Teresa Walsh.
The evening saw the Leiston Royal British Legion band lead Father Christmas and the parade through the packed streets. The lights were turned on, as is tradition, outside our Durrants Halesworth office to much applause and cheering.
A huge thank you from Durrants to Teresa and all the team for all their hard work and effort in making the evening such a success.
A contemporary home in Reydon, marketed by Durrants, has received national interest after an article on the Mail Online website.
Undoubtedly, one feature inside the house is what caused the most attention – an indoor slide! The slide from the first floor to ground floor offers an exciting alternative to taking the other staircase.
The Mail Online picked up on this quirky addition to the family home and featured it on their website, helping to make it the most viewed property on our own website this week.
Of course, the property has a lot more going for it than just a slide. This strikingly modern coastal home has been subject to an extensive extension, re-design and refurbishment. Previously a modest bungalow, it was overhauled by the current owner in 2016 to provide a contemporary seaside home with four bedrooms, three bathrooms and modern open plan living featuring a great outdoor seating area.
Contact our Southwold office on 01502 723292 if you would like a viewing.
The Durrants team are celebrating an excellent win on behalf of their client this week after securing full planning permission for a rural workers dwelling in Rumburgh, East Suffolk.
The application was made in order to allow an engineering company to continue to operate their agricultural machinery maintenance business by living on site. Durrants Building Consultancy’s in-house architects provided the supporting plans and the planning team produced the supporting planning documentation, including the Planning, Design and Access Statement.
Policy WLP8.11 of the Waveney Local Plan sets a high threshold to allow new homes in the countryside for rural workers. Applications must demonstrate an essential functional need which cannot be met by other nearby housing. The question of functional need is often, as in this case, mistakenly interpreted as applying to maintaining the welfare of livestock, excluding agricultural support services. However, Durrants outlined in the planning statement and committee speech that this is a misconception, and that both local and national policy support housing for anyone who needs to live close to their place of work in the countryside, regardless of the nature of that work. In this case the company provides agricultural machinery maintenance services to 400 clients across East Anglia.
Durrants Building Consultancy set out a clear case for approval in the planning submission, including site security, business efficiency (particularly relating to a 24/7 call-out service) and sustainability. The application received letters of support from local residents, business owners, and the support of the parish council and ward members. The application was recommended for refusal by the case officer on the basis that no functional need had been demonstrated.
However, thanks to successful lobbying, the application was referred to full planning committee, where it was subject to a thorough debate by members and ultimately approved. One of the most compelling reasons for approval which emerged during the debate was site security. Members recognised the rise in rural crime and the value of living on site in preventing theft. Secondary to this was the crucial role that the applicant’s business plays in the local agricultural sector, and the importance that planning decisions play in supporting rural farming communities.
We are thrilled for our client, and pleased that members were able to see that rural workers policies are designed to be permissive in appropriate circumstances, not preventative.
Rural workers dwellings can be contentious, but with the right team of experts and a strategic approach, it is possible to secure a home close to your place of work in the countryside, and we would encourage anyone who is considering applying to get in touch with our team to discuss your ambitions.
Durrants were recently invited to attend an event by CLA East to show how a 25 year old chicken shed was converted to a zero-carbon home. Nick Woolley and his wife Saffy shared with Durrants Principal Planner, Jonny Rankin, the challenges and successes they faced during the conversion process.
Planning permission initially came to life via a Class Q Prior Approval, which will be very familiar to Durrants clients. Class Q’s are a Building Consultancy mainstay, with several on the books at any one time.
The chicken shed in question benefitted from a southern elevation allowing for passive solar gain and a large bank of solar panels on the south-facing roof slope.
Having attended events at Woolley’s old HQ in Freckenham, I was aware of Nick’s advocacy for the Hockerton Housing project and the building principles therein. Having retrofitted the previous Old Rectory buildings, in speaking with Nick, I could sense the excitement at the opportunity to start from the ground up – literally – with the chicken shed. Some features we had the pleasure to view included:
Onsite generation is key to the success of the zero-carbon performing home and we were abvle to view the 75 solar panels (27kWh maximum energy production) and the 3 Tesla Powerwall batteries.
All heating is solar powered, delivered by underfloor heating – only required in colder months absence solar gain.
Mechanical Ventilation and Heat Recovery (MHVR) is something we are also employing for clients on some of our current planning applications and builds and we were able to view the Vent-Axia unit chosen by Nick and Saffy. The MHVR unit changes air throughout the building roughly every four hours, exchanging ‘old’ air whilst retaining up to 80% of the heat, heating the incoming air.
Rain-water harvesting (from roof space and guttering) is collected in a 6000 litre underground storage tank. The water is then filtered and fed back into domestic use. Hot water is provide by a 450 litre, highly insulated tank, reducing the energy required to heat the water by as much as 43%.
Smart-operating Velux windows open in reaction to extreme temperatures and also close when it rains.
Particularly topical for some of our clients in this time of Nutrient Neutrality is the private sewage treatment works employed. Sewage is treated by a double, in-tandem septic tank system – which alone would treat effluent sufficiently. Thereafter, however, a reedbed filtration pond (complete with Water Voles and Frogs) removes the remaining nutrients ‘standard’ septic tanks and public sewage treatment works are currently struggling with. An important technological solution for many of our clients.
We continue to engage with the CLA and other partners to ensure we are best able to support our clients, deploy the best technologies and offer the best service possible through Durrants Building Consultancy.
The friendly team at Durrants Building Consultancy are always happy to discuss your plans and help you get your project off the ground. There is more information about our services here, but please get in touch with our Building Consultancy team to find out more on 01379 646603.
* Thermal transmittance, also known as U-value, is the rate of transfer of heat through a structure (which can be a single material or a composite), divided by the difference in temperature across that structure. The units of measurement are W/m²K. The better-insulated a structure is, the lower the U-value will be.
The Durrants team will be out in force at the ever-popular Grand Henham Steam Rally near Southwold this weekend.
It’s the 46th running of the event which features family entertainment coupled with displays of steam power and other vintage vehicles and machinery. There’s over 1000 exhibits and working demonstrations – and there’s even a chance to steer a steam engine yourself!
Durrants will have a stand at the Rally on both Saturday and Sunday where you can meet members of our team and find out about all the services we provide from our Southwold office.
We look forward to seeing you there if you’re coming along. Gates at Henham Park are open from 10am to 6pm on both days.
The consultation period for the ‘Housing in Clusters and Small Scale Residential Development in the Countryside Supplementary Planning Document’ (SPD) closed on Friday 5thAugust.
The document seeks to provide clarity on the interpretation of the two relevant policies relating to housing in the countryside (i.e. outside of settlement boundaries, but within groups of other dwellings) – SCLP5.4 and WLP8.7. One of the main issues the Council has sought to address in the SPD is the definition of a ‘cluster’ or ‘settlement in the countryside’. Both policies allow for ‘infill’ development in such settlements, i.e. filling in obvious gaps in a continuous built up area.
Despite the local plans both being recently adopted, officer interpretation of the policies has been inconsistent, leading to some unfair decisions for applicants. Durrants represent numerous clients whose applications have been both approved and refused against these policies. Our letter to the Council highlighted some of the inconsistencies in their previous application of policy, and most importantly, some of areas in which the SPD could fail to avoid such issues in the future. These include the acceptable size and nature of a ‘gap’, what constitutes ‘continuous built up frontage’ and how development on one vs two sides of the road is treated.
It is our view that the SPD in its current form will only add to the existing confusion, and that the preferable solution is for officers to decide applications in accordance with SCLP5.4 and WLP8.7, as these policies are both very clear and pro-development.
We have summarised the points made in our representations here and would encourage you to take a look at the SPD online.
No timescale has been given for the next phase of the consultation process, but Durrants will continue to engage with the process on behalf of our clients. Please do get in touch if you have a potential site that could be captured by these changes.
On 20th July, the government announced that the Levelling Up Bill (see our article on this here) will be amended to place a new legal duty on water companies to upgrade treatment works by 2030 in an attempt to reduce water pollution.
Alongside this, Natural England are to introduce a Nutrient Mitigation Scheme, which will see the body develop woodland and wetland areas to offset nutrient pollution. Developers can then by nutrient credits to offset the impact of their proposals.
Though initial advice suggested the scheme would be in place by the autumn, it is now believed that this is in fact when Natural England will begin tendering for the new schemes.
The good news is that SME developers will be prioritised, and developers are still encouraged to provide their own mitigation solutions, with a commitment that Natural England will support, not hinder, such proposals.
This is a very positive step and a sign of swift action from the government. We are still awaiting an announcement from our local councils as to whether they plan to continue with the strategy they outlined in June (see our article on this here).
Dominic Parravani of Durrants looks at a new property market in the wake of the incomparable past two years.
The thing with changing property markets is that eventually we adapt to each manifestation. Changing markets are a bit like a pandemic. First they are a surprise, next, sadly, some people are harmed by the new normal, and then we learn how to handle the threat.
Then, just when we begin to get comfy, something happens and we have to learn all over again in a new market. This is where we are now.
Property market watchers, looking for signs that the post pandemic property party is over, have been on high alert for some time. But they don’t have to watch too closely as all the signs are there for anyone to see. The days of putting a property on the market at almost any price, and then exceeding that figure in a market awash with cash buyers desperate to move, are over. We may never see their like again – or, at least, not for decades. Today’s buyers are a new breed. Rising mortgage interest rates, the increasing cost of living and an uncertain and often unstable world have led to understandable caution.
So with what sort of new market must we become familiar? There are some interesting patterns emerging. It is becoming more of a buyers’ market. There will be a wider choice for buyers, who will feel less pressured to make their final choices. Sellers will have to become used to delay and uncertainty.
How often have we heard that a property’s three most essential things are location, location, location? Well in this new market those things will become price, price, price. In a market with greater choice attracting a buyer becomes more challenging. There are two ways to overcome this: correct pricing and making your home as buyer-friendly as possible – clean, tidy, decluttered, sweet-smelling and great-looking from the kerb.
Oh, and there is another way to succeed in selling: make sure you have an experienced estate agent who understands how to adapt to changing times and markets.
Finally, sellers shouldn’t despair. The post-pandemic party may be essentially over, but for sellers with a great estate agent, good housekeeping and accurate pricing there is still time for one for the road.
Gabrielle Wones has recently joined Durrants as Assistant Manager in our Halesworth branch.
Gabi entered estate agency after a career change and has worked successfully at a senior level for a number of corporate and independent local estate agents before joining the team at Durrants in May this year.
She said: “I love piecing the puzzle together for someone who is making a move. I love the fact that people who are moving all have different circumstances as to why they are moving, whether it’s a new start or a new baby, and adapting to their requirements.”
Halesworth is very much a growth area for Durrants right now. Gabi says the area has so much to offer: “Halesworth is a lovely area – so close to the coast with a really good community and plenty going on. Character properties are particularly popular at the moment and we are seeing demand for holiday cottages in the area.
“Property in and around Halesworth is more affordable than places such as Southwold for those who would like a base close to the coast, which is only a 15 minute drive away. “
Gabi is looking to maintain Durrants well-known reputation for excellent customer service across all our branches. “I pride myself in the customer service we offer to clients,” she says, “…and we try to hold their hands through the process, making it as stress-free as possible.”
To arrange a valuation of your home or a viewing of a property, please contact our Halesworth branch on 01986 872553 or email halesworth@durrants.com.
Thank you to everyone who came along and visited us at this year’s Diss Carnival. We’re pleased to announce that your generosity helped us raise £143 for Diss Community First Responders.
It was the icing on the cake for us on what was a great day out for everyone. We’re grateful to anyone who dropped coins into collection boxes or took part in our Hook a Duck game which proved very popular.
The Community First Responders are all volunteers and many of us will know how vital the service is in assisting potential life threatening emergencies and stabilising patients in the time before an ambulance crew can arrive and take over.
It was great for us all to be back out in our community again and we’re already looking forward to another great Carnival and Fun Day next year.
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