Planning Applications down by 22%
The number of planning applications received by English 'district level' planning authorities during the last financial year totalled 507,000, a decrease of 22 per cent compared to the previous year.
These latest official statistics also showed that there were 489,000 decisions (granted or refused), a fall of 18 per cent on the previous year. Permissions amounted to 387,000. This rate of 83 per cent has been approximately the same since 2005/06.
The figures indicated that some 71 per cent of major applications were decided within 13 weeks. This rate has stayed level since 2006/07.
During 2008/09, ‘county level’ planning authorities received 1,667 ‘county matters' planning applications, eight per cent down the previous year.
There were 1,507 decisions of which 92 per cent were permissions. This rate has remained more or less level since 2001/02.
The percentages of planning permissions granted, in 2008/09, ranged from the North East (91 per cent) and the North West (88 per cent) to the South East (81 per cent) and London (75 per cent).
The proportion of major applications decided within 13 weeks was highest in the North East (77 per cent) and lowest in the East and the South West (both 68 per cent).
The percentage of minor applications decided within eight weeks was relatively high in the North East (80 per cent) and the North West (79 per cent).
Starchitects
When Kenny Schachter, an art dealer, decided to build an extravagant new live/work property in Hoxton Square, in east London, he knew who he wanted to design it: Zaha Hadid, probably the world’s most prominent female architect.
“I was amazed by her work,” he says. “She’s a creative genius. She was absolutely the right person to get.”
Baghdad-born Hadid, whose most recent projects include the Aquatic Centre for the 2012 London Olympics, also in east London, came up with a suitably extraordinary design for Schachter’s house/gallery: something like a cubist painting turned into a 3-D building. However, although planners at Hackney council, the local authority, gave their permission, English Heritage, according to Schachter, “acted like Prince Charles, saying it was the wrong building in the wrong neighbourhood”. Their objections were eventually overcome, but then the credit crunch hit, and the £7m house/gallery project was suspended.
Such, it seems, are the perils of employing a “starchitect”, a term that took hold in the boom years of the late 1990s to describe architects such as Frank Gehry, Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, Daniel Libeskind, Richard Rogers, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron — and Hadid — who sprang from the pages of architectural magazines to become household names.
The boom is history, however, and the architecture industry is in a bad way: practices across the country are going under, and, according to the Architects’ Journal, at least half of the firms have laid off staff. So, does this mean architects such as Rogers, Foster or Hadid are now so desperate, they are ready to design your kitchen extension or your loft conversion? Not necessarily.
“As a practice, we don’t tend to do bespoke houses,” says Rogers’s firm, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. I don’t have any more joy with Foster + Partners. “We would prefer not to comment,” says Gayle Markovitz, a marketing executive there. An e-mail to Hadid’s people is courteously handled, but inconclusive.
Even though members of the architectural A list may still be out of reach for those without multi-million-pound budgets, the downturn makes this a good time to spot up-and-coming “starchitects” — and make use of their services. “Obviously, you’re going to pay far more for, say, Norman Foster than a local person, should you be able to get them,” says Adrian Dobson, director of practice for the Royal Institute of British Architects. “But remember, many well-known architects started out with domestic projects. So look for people in their early to midstage careers.”
Ed Reeve, a photographer, went one step better when he set out to build a home in Hackney: he turned to the Tanzanian-born David Adjaye, one of Britain’s trendiest architects, whose clients have included Ewan McGregor, among other artists and actors. The result: the Sunken House, a minimalist, three-storey wooden cube placed incongruously among the period properties in the conservation area of De Beauvoir Town. Nicknamed Ed’s Shed, the house appears blank from the street, but is filled with light from the back and top.
Just as a celebrity chef is unlikely to do all the cooking himself, so a “starchitect” will devolve much of the work to a junior member of his team — while still retaining overall control.
“Once David was satisfied the ball was rolling, he handed the project to someone in his office,” says Reeve. “But he would look in on meetings or when an important design decision had to be made.”
Reeve feels as if he’s living in a piece of public property. “It’s famous,” he says. “Passers-by take photographs of it.” His experience, he insists, has been fantastic — in contrast to that of Janet Street-Porter, one of Adjaye’s former clients, who referred to the architect in 2005 as “someone I dream of regularly ritually disembowelling or forcing to go through a nasty form of torture before mopping up the storm water in my living room with his designer sweaters”. Adjaye has since blamed Street-Porter’s unhappiness on a misunderstanding.
More recently, however, his practice has faced problems of a more serious kind: despite winning a series of prestigious contracts across the world, it was obliged earlier this year to enter into a company voluntary arrangement, a means of rescheduling debts to stave off insolvency proceedings.
For anybody wanting starchitect style without the hassle, there’s another way — buy it off the shelf. “Developers know that a named architect adds value,” says Roger Zogolovitch, the hairman of the London-based architects Solid Space. Candy & Candy, the upmarket developer, employed Foster’s practice to design 21 Chesham Place in Belgravia, which opened last year, and Richard Rogers’s firm for One Hyde Park and the vexed Chelsea Barracks scheme, which has been forced back to the drawing board by the planners following the Prince of Wales’s well-publicised objections.
Schachter, who reckons he spent some 6%-10% of his £7m budget on Hadid’s fee, meanwhile hopes his unusual home will be “up before the Olympics”, giving him the only residential project she has designed in Britain.
Not that it has been a smooth ride. “Zaha’s well known for dressing people down, and I’ve been dressed down,” he says. “Still, I’ve moved from fear to love.”
Get planning
How can I spot a “starchitect” in the making? Check awards (architects love putting their designs into competitions) and get referrals: the Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba; 020 7307 3700, architecture.com) offers a client service. Names to look out for include Alison Brooks Architects, Laurie Chetwood, Niall McLaughlin and Michaelis Boyd, which worked on David Cameron’s Notting Hill home. Also up and coming are Patrick Lynch of Lynch Architects and Kevin Carmody of Carmody Groarke.
Will my architect respond to my demands or be a dictator? Bear in mind that, as the client, you simply want a house, albeit a very nice design-conscious one, whereas the architect may have an agenda of their own. “Some architects are visionary and creative designers, who may be more demanding. Others are geared towards, say, sustainable design,” says Jane Duncan, a Buckinghamshire-based architect. “If you’re spending £250,000, it makes sense to get someone right for your job.” A highly singular architect such as Zaha Hadid will require creative freedom.
How do I find out more? Find three or so architects you admire and invite them to the site. This consultation is often free and is a good way to get ideas.
How do I know they’ll do what I want? Create a “mood board” or scrapbook of buildings and interiors that you like and which they can constantly refer to. Also remember to ask about functional aspects such as energy efficiency, light, storage, acoustics and heating performance.
How much will it cost? Anything between 5%-11% of the full project price. Published per-hour rates are £84 to £100 per hour for a senior architect.
How can I avoid nasty surprises? Make sure the budget and architect’s duties are set out clearly from the start. Stick to the brief, and don’t change your mind.
Snakes and Property Ladders
Property ladder-obsessed homeowners look to be a thing of the past with almost three quarters of the nation saying they are happy to stay in their current property in the downturn.
The study revealed that the ladder climbing mentality so common before the price crash has taken a knock, with the 80 per cent of people who said they actively sought to climb the property ladder dropping to just 26 per cent now.
Research by Aviva suggests that 68 per cent of homeowners see their home as an emotional investment, where they seek relaxation and calm, rather than a commodity to make money for the future. And in the event of losing their existing home almost three quarters of people (71 per cent) said they would want to buy it back and 16 per cent said they would be prepared to pay more than the market value for it.
The Hoppers V Stoppers study by Aviva and Dr Paul Keedwell, expert in environmental psychology at Cardiff University, has calculated that the average homeowner has an emotional equity of GBP 26,880 in their property.
Of all respondents, 24 to 34-year-olds were shown to have the strongest emotional bond to their home with 17 per cent prepared to buy back their home for more than the market value.
Simon Warsop, director of home at Aviva said: "In a country that has been driven by a property-ladder culture for so many years it is interesting to see that perhaps we are seeing the evolution of a new social trend - one where the home really is where the heart is rather than a commodity to do up and sell on.
"Clearly when the housing market picks up we may see our appetite for house hopping re emerge, but at the moment it seems we are clearly stopping in the place that makes us feel the most safe and secure."
Repair Liability of Nearby Church
A couple who face costs of £230,000 to repair a nearby church under a law dating back to the reign of Henry VIII sold their property at auction to cover the cost of the liability.
Andrew and Gail Wallbank inherited Glebe Farm in Warwickshire in the 1980s, and just sold the property at auction for £850,000. However, the bulk of the proceeds are already spoken for as the couple must pay £230,000 to repair the chancel of Aston Cantlow's 13th-century church, and cover legal bills of around £250,000 following an unsuccessful battle against the ancient law.
Chancel repair liability affects a small number of properties across the country, and where it applies it leaves a property (or more commonly a number of properties) liable for the repair of a church's chancel, although indemnity insurance policies can be bought to cover owners against any potential cost.
Mr Wallbank said he had no regrets about battling the law. The 69-year-old from Carno, Powys, told the Press Association: "I felt what they were doing was so wrong that we had to take a stand against it.
"It was quite disgraceful the way the whole thing was handled – why they couldn't have agreed to let us buy ourselves out [of the covenant] I just don't know."
His wife, 62, also criticised the church authorities for attempting to make them pay for the repairs before defending their actions in the courts. "It is completely against Christian principles," she said. "As the auction was going on I was thinking 'you are giving the church our house'."
The law is set to change surrounding these ancient covenants. By 2013, any chancel repair liability that has not been lodged with the land registry by a parish will no longer bind property owners.
Mad American in Macao
Why, oh why, oh why?
Housebuilders face home truths about complaints
Complaints about alleged defects in new homes are increasing, despite a slump in the number of properties sold in the recession. Complaints to the National House Building Council (NHBC), which offers warranties on 80% of new homes, topped 64,000 in 2008/09. This is up only slightly from 63,000 in 2007/08 but comes in a year when there was a 40% drop in the number of new homes sold because of the credit crunch.
The NHBC is an independent body but relies for funding on housebuilders buying its warranty schemes and training services. It released these figures only following a request by Guardian Money.
The figures also show a sharp upward long-term trend. The NHBC annual report reveals it paid £34m in compensation claims five years ago but by 2008/09 that was £59.3m.
In the past year, the council's resolution service, which arbitrates between developers and buyers, found in favour of the buyer in 69% of cases.
One buyer who complained is Christine Townsend, a teacher with two teenage children who in June of last year bought a four-bed house in Peterborough for £220,000 from Stamford Homes, which is part of the Galliford Try housing group.
"The faults were niggling things like labels left between double-glazed windows, right up to major cracks in walls. At first, Stamford rectified the problems but then they just gave up and weren't really interested," she says.
There were 114 unresolved faults identified by Christine and her father, Trevor, a retired fireman, including allegedly ineffective firebreaks and structural problems. The NHBC found in Christine's favour on 86 faults and now she wants to negotiate with Stamford to move to a different, similar-sized home nearby.
"You have to declare past faults when you sell a house. I'd been scared that, with the history of problems, I'd never have sold the home," she says.
The managing director of Stamford Homes, Brendan Blythe, offers the company's "sincere apologies" and says it does not dispute "the vast majority" of defects. But he says there is no proof that the home would be hard to sell if its history of defects was revealed, and refuses to commit to any compensation. He insists that Christine and her children move out while the remedial work is done – for an unspecified period – "to cause the least disruption possible".
Problems such as those affecting the Townsends are not rare in the industry.
"A third of new houses have 100 to 200 defects. Many are minor joinery faults but we've seen a three-storey house with no fire resistance in the walls, breaching building regulations," says Steve Roberts of New Build Inspections, a company that spots defects that have passed checks by the developer and the NHBC during building work.
Roberts says business is brisk in spite of the recession. But whereas most work used to be precautionary checks before people bought, the majority of clients now are owners living in their new homes and enduring acrimonious rows with developers over unresolved faults.
Things should have been better for buyers by now. In 2004 the Barker review, a survey of the housing market commissioned by Gordon Brown when he was chancellor, urged developers to improve customer care.
But a survey of 1,000 buyers last year by the Office of Fair Trading found continuing problems. About 32% could not move in on the promised date and 3% had a year's delay. A full 70% of buyers found faults, with 2% waiting a year for them to be fixed. About 24% of buyers said quality was low. Yet the NHBC claims that the increase in complaints is down to buyers being fussier, not builders being sloppier.
"Purchasers, rightly, demand everything is perfect for their money," said NHBC spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton. "People have become far more aware of their rights, so it's not necessarily a case of build quality being less good than before."
Anyone who rings the NHBC for information on developers' standards gets short shrift. The body will say if a particular developer is NHBC-registered but refuses to give details of the number or nature of complaints against individual companies.
The NHBC has had a near-monopoly over new-home warranties since another insurer, Zurich, withdrew from the market in September. The NHBC's 15-strong board includes a former chairman of the Citizens Advice Bureau, but four other members are heads of large housebuilding companies or the Home Builders Federation, a cheerleading group for developers.
Now the housebuilding industry is under notice from the Office of Fair Trading to improve its performance.
It has until March 2010 to create a redress system for disgruntled customers, involving compensation for delays and faults with properties.
The OFT warns that if builders do not create a system, then one will be imposed on them. It says: "In the event that the industry fails to make adequate progress … we recommend immediate further intervention in the form of a statutory redress mechanism for new-home buyers."
Finding fault: a step-by-step guide to checking your home
• Speak to those already living in a new scheme. Are there faults? Are they fixed quickly and adequately?
Research the developer online: has it been the subject of press articles or chatroom discussions about poor build quality and complaints?
Ensure your chosen home has a warranty from the NHBC, Premier or another insurance scheme.
• See the home before you buy: showhomes are often carefully designed with small furniture and few doors to give an impression of generous space.
• Developers may rush buyers in before financial year-end dates to improve their sales targets. Check that the home is properly finished and snagged.
• Consider instructing a conveyancing solicitor who has previously negotiated payment retentions over defects on new-build homes.
• After moving in, check over your property methodically every month and seek remedial work until the warranty expires.
Developer takes Conservation Area fight to High Court
A legal fight over a disused monastery in the London Borough of Barnet has reached the High Court.
Developer Metro Construction says that the Barnet council wrongly designated the former Carmelite Monastery at 119 Bridge Lane, Barnet, as a Conservation Area in order to prevent its demolition.
It says that the Council was not entitled to designate a single building as a Conservation Area in this way, and that it only acted in response to an application to demolish the monastery.
It says that the decision did not involve the necessary assessment of whether the monastery - which the government had elected not to protect via the means of statutory listing - had any special architectural or historic interest worth preserving.
Metro Construction has now altered its plans and obtained planning permission for a redevelopment scheme that will include the retention of the monastery building.
Under these plans the monastery will be converted into 27 residential units, while five dwellings and two blocks containing 13 affordable flats will be added within the grounds.
However, the site would still remain subject to the tight controls of a Conservation Area, and Metro is asking senior planning judge Mr Justice Andrew Collins to quash the Council's decision to impose those restrictions.
It says that the decision was irrational and an unlawful misuse of the Council's powers under the Listed Buildings Act, because it was aimed solely at preventing demolition, not preserving or enhancing the character and appearance of the area.
It also complains that he Council failed to take material considerations into account, including the secretary of state for Communities and Local Government's decision that the monastery was not of special architectural or historic interest.
The judge is expected to reserve his decision in order to give it in writing at a later date.
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