Herefordshire Council does free “planning surgeries” in Ledbury, where you can turn up without an appointment and ask for an informal opinion from a planning officer. I took along pictures of my garden, explained the problem, and asked whether I would need planning permission to sort it out. Obviously, I’d much prefer not, as it’s an added level of expense and bureaucracy that I could well do without.
The planning officer drew a deep breath, sucked his teeth (I’m getting used to that reaction to my garden!) and said that it was a tricky one. He confessed that he had never seen anything like my garden before (somehow, I wasn’t surprised) and agreed that almost anything I did would be an improvement over what I’ve got; however he would need to get a second opinion from his senior officer as to whether or not it fell inside the remit of planning law. He took my number and said he’d get back to me. Later that afternoon he phoned, true to his word, and gave me the verdict.
Unfortunately, yes, I do need planning permission, for the triple reasons of it being “engineering works”, “a retaining wall more than 2m high” and “in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty”. He implied that it shouldn’t be too much trouble to get planning permission, as clearly Something Needs to Be Done. However, I would have to abide by the formalities. That was a real nuisance, as now I needed to get proper scale drawings of plan and cross-section, showing proposed materials and fixings etc. So a few weeks ago I had a structural engineer around to do a topographical survey of the garden and draw up plans which I have submitted to the council. They’ve just started writing to the neighbours to notify them, although I’ve already spoken to the closest two who would be most affected, and they are both supportive of the plans, which is good. Now I have to wait for the process to grind slowly on.
