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advice & applications

It is often through planning and development that clients can enjoy significant enhancements to the value of their property assets, and Townsend Chartered Surveyors have experience in planning issues in the South West, particularly for rural property. We will come out and view your particular project and provide full advice on what options you may have, what financial benefits they could bring and what chance of success you may have.

Once a particular course of action is decided on, we can then undertake to provide the design & drawings element needed, and all the necessary reports to supplement the planning application, and submit them to the Local Planning Authority (LPA). We are also experienced in pre-application negotiations with the Planning Authority and can advise on how to adjust applications to give the best possible chance of success, based on discussions with a Planning Officer, ideally on site. The supplemental reports required by LPAs can include Expert Witness Reports, Agricultural or Business Need Assessments and Environmental Impact Assessments, as well as full drawings for planning applications, Design & Access Statements and arranging for all other necessary reports such as Wildlife Surveys and Traffic Surveys.

Often rural planning applications are turned down as a matter of course by the LPAs, and we have a good track record in submitting successful appeals by addressing the reasons for refusal in a methodical and informed manner, using our extensive knowledge of the Government’s Planning Policy Statement 7 (PPS 7) upon which all LPAs’ Policies are based, and by keeping up to date with recent changes to the planning framework at both a national and local level.

In some cases planning applications are retrospective, where a client has not fully appreciated the need for permission before changing the use of a building or even erecting a temporary dwelling, and we are well practiced in dealing with Enforcement Notice Appeals and the retrospective planning applications that should accompany them.

We have experience in obtaining consents for barn conversions to residential, holiday lets or workshops, new agricultural dwellings or buildings, development sites and much more. We can also advise upon change of use applications and listed building consent, and advice on re-sale values which will inform you on whether the development is financially sound. Our property service can then offer a full marketing service, either when permission is granted or when the development is complete.