Do you own an agricultural barn? Traditional stone barn, steel portal frame or concrete? Did you know it may be possible to convert it to upto three dwelling units without full planning? Turning redundant or under utilised agricultural buildings into residential properties can be highly lucrative. Clearly some of these buildings need to be imaginatively revived to use them as dwellings and technical detailing is key to create sustainable and beautiful homes.
Western Building Consultants have extensive experience from concept to completion with dealing with such structures starting from initial survey and appraisals of the structural stability through to designing the barns to meet Class Q guidelines, building regulations and administering the project. Often the large spaces and oversized nature of these industrial buildings can create wonderful and unusual dwellings, the scale of which just wouldn’t normally be allowed in a rural residential context.
These planning regulations, known as ‘Class Q permitted development’ are part of the government’s drive to ease the pressure on rural housing supply.
For Class Q regulations to apply a building needs to have been used for agriculture on or before 20th March 2013.
(Class Q will not It doesn’t apply to listed buildings, those in an Area of outstanding national beauty, conservation area which are in AONB, National Parks or conservation areas, or those which are listed.
It is common for applications to be interpreted differently across councils so local knowledge can be key in getting the right decision. Contact us today to to find out more.