We’ve only gone and got APPROVAL!!
We’ve only gone and got APPROVAL!!
With Christmas and New Year, I haven’t had chance to write anything down here but I think it’s worth describing (albeit belatedly) what to expect if you find yourself in a planning committee meeting. So strap in, this takes a bit of following!
If you’ve never been in a planning meeting before, it’s a bit like waiting for your exam results. You know you’ve done everything you can, but in truth, you have absolutely no idea if it was enough! After sitting through two hours’ worth of other people’s applications and appeals, the majority of which were getting rejected, it feels like a bad start. My mood is pretty low and, thanks to the overzealous air conditioning, my throat and eyeballs are completely dry too. Gary, my father-in-law has come along for moral support and has brought his famously short temper, tutting and muttering ‘oh for gods’ sake’ and ‘get on with it’ to himself as appellants and objectors detail the pro’s and con’s. As one more application is shredded in front of the baying mob, a disheartening cheer breaks out from the crowd of pensioners behind us. An application to create six touring pitches alongside their static caravans fails to get through and as the reality that you can’t even get planning permission to put a caravan next to a slightly bigger caravan dawns on me, I realise I have my work cut out.
My objector goes first and details his concerns for the full five minutes, with evidence of the buildings history and the nearby traffic accidents on the adjoining road.
As my turn to speak arrived and the cold sweat dripped down my back, nothing came out!
Struggling with what was now a moisture free voice box, I struggled and half-shouted our plans like a mid-pubescent teenager (..think Kevin and Perry) my voice breaking and crackling for what felt like an eternity. I outlined our intentions and flicked through power-point slides before handing out a replica roof slate (..I have absolutely no idea why I did this?!) to the nearest councillor. Before sitting back down to await the verdict.
The next ten minutes belong to the committee who go back and forth. Among the first to speak was a councillor who had coincidentally ‘been to a do’ at our hall some years earlier when it was still being used for church events. He loved the idea. That’s one. Another agreed as it’s something of a local landmark it was the best option to future-proof the building. That’s two. The irony of a Lancashire lad coming into Yorkshire to restore a piece of its history was briefly mentioned (given the historic rivalry) and although not unanimous (5 for, 0 against, 3 abstaining), the vote carried and after months of uncertainty, paper chasing and worry, in January of 2016, we reclassified our money pit as a camping barn.
I recalled the financial risks we’d taken on, the promises I’ve made to my wife Rachel, that this is just a ‘tick-box exercise’ and the time I’ve lost with the kids just to get this far and I gave myself permission to smile and breathe.
Official Paperwork arrives from Craven CDC Planning Department and the Temperance Hall is now officially a Camping Barn!