Do you own or lease a listed or historically sensitive building in Bath that you are remodelling, extending or maintaining?
If you are looking for someone to design a suitable and sensitive extension or for advice about planning permission and listed building consent then you have come to the right place. We provide specialist advice surrounding the alteration, repair, enlargement or change of use associated of historically sensitive buildings in Bath and beyond.
Do you need advice about a problem with your listed building?
If you own or rent a historic building in Bath and have specific issues or defects we are able to provide a defect analysis recommending further investigation, recording defects or repair methodology. We usually carryout an initial survey based on an hourly inspection rate. If this service sounds suitable please call our offices on 01225789307 and they will arrange for an inspector to visit the property.
Why are we different to other heritage architectural consultants?
Our multidisciplinary team is made up of professionals with varying skills. We have a unique practical surveying, engineering and architectural approach and have a wide variety of experience working on several different types of project, Including Grade I listed buildings in Bath. Our team are experts at negotiating with conservation officers and have a wide knowledge of the planning and conservation framework. We actively monitor our application and liaise with the conservation department within your local authority to ensure a proactive approach. Our current staff includes a conservation focused architect, an architectural technologist with a conservation masters degree and an architectural assistant with a conservation masters degree.
We are usually able to produce all of the required planning documentation in house including, statements of significance, architectural detailing, design & access statements, schedules of repair and specialist defect reports.
How did you get your experience?
Our experience was developed from working within the historically sensitive World heritage City of Bath and from our Clifton office in the predominantly Georgian area of Bristol City. We have often applied our experience across the wider South West including sensitive barn conversions in the Wiltshire and Mendip areas. Our staff have also studied Masters level conservation modules at local universities, lectured at Bath University and studied under retired Conservation Architect Peter Johnston.
Planning to alter or extend a listed building in a way that could affect its character?
Most people are not aware that unauthorised works to a listed building is a criminal offence and you can be prosecuted, fortunately WBC can arrange all of the required consents for you and advise on what alterations may be considered acceptable.
You are required by law to apply for listed building consent from your local authority. Listed buildings are usually given a grading based on their significance, WBC has working knowledge and experience working with all grades including Grade I and II*.
You can’t extend listed buildings, right?
Wrong! If suitable you can sometimes extend listed buildings especially if there are elements of improvement that can be made on the original building, however it is of the up most importance that you employ a designer or surveyor in Bath with the correct knowledge.
We have a large portfolio of designs in both traditional and contemporary styles in Bath. Site dependant the design response is often balanced on the clients requirements, the setting and BANES advice. We are able to design projects in rural settings for to extend listed farm houses, barn conversions, or even urban extensions to listed properties.
How long does the process of Listed Building approval take?
Although the application process itself only takes 8 weeks (the same as planning consent), the design team will need to assemble the required research and information, usually there is a large number of drawings and information required to register the application, far in excess of a normal planning application. We also usually recommend that a pre application submission is made to BANES prior to making the formal application. The process could take around 4-6 months to get a permission in place, especially where conditions are applied to the consent.
Buying a Listed Building or Historic Property?
Commissioning a full Building Survey opposed to a homebuyers report or valuation is vital. Purchasing your home or commercial property is probably the biggest outlay you are ever going to make, listed buildings are much more likely to have serious defects and a RICS full building survey will help to reduce, or inform you about, some of the unknown risks involved.
Our RICS Building Surveyors in Bath carryout surveys for a variety of properties both residential and commercial. This service may also be required when applying for listed building consent or a similar schedule of repairs.
Should you get a survey of your existing property before refurbishing it?
A listed building condition survey is a perfect start to planning your refurbishment, it will help identify defects and prioritise them with planned maintenance. As a complimentary service it will inform our architectural team of what out remedial works may need to be applied for.
Why should you use our Building Surveyors over other practices?
Our clients are people not numbers, we are not in the business of volume surveys, we provide quality bespoke surveys, market leading upfront information and explanations tailored to your needs. We can tailor our survey to investigate specific issues during our survey and can review options for restoration and extension to your needs.
We provide an unrivalled after service, we will call you after the survey to discuss any major issues identified, our surveys contain an approximation of the costs involved to bring the property up to a reasonable standard.
Our after service can also include firming up costs with a quantity surveyor, drawing up of a schedule of work and project administration for the repairs.
Please call 01225789307 to arrange a survey view our T&Cs and book in a survey.
Stunning Architectural Barn Conversions in Bath, Wiltshire, Mendips, South Gloucestershire & Surrounding Areas.
Are you looking to get planning permission, Listed Building consent or Project administration for a barn conversion in Bath or the South West?
Western Building consultants have a wealth of knowledge and experience providing comprehensive architectural designs and surveying services for rural barn conversions, in Bath and the South West.
Our conservation experts including chartered architects, surveyors and building engineers can help you design your dream home, Business premises or development. Utilising our key surveying skills we have experience in bringing the most agricultural of barns into usage, including the conversion of more modern barn constructions such as portal framed structures and concrete block buildings.
We have worked on numerous Listed barn conversions and can help navigate the planning and listed building frameworks, to help you achieve the reuse of agricultural buildings.
Looking to extend or remodel your home in Bath or the surrounding areas?
Western Building Consultants expertise has been developed from years of designing extensions and remodelling buildings for its clients in Bath and surrounding areas. We have produced extensions in both traditional rural and contemporary designs.
At Western we have a unique approach, we can usually handle all professional services in house including- Measured Surveys, Architectural Designs, Structural Steel Design, Planning, Building Control, Party Wall Act, Wessex Water approval, CDM Principal Designer and Interior Design…
What does this mean for me?
Quite simply, by offering all of these services in house we reduce the stress and cost of going out to separate consultants, adding real value to our design process compared to our competitors.
How can you offer such an array of services?
From our Bath office, we structure our business as a multi-disciplinary practice and employ Architects, Architectural technologists, Building Engineers, Interior Designers and Building Surveyors.
What Type of projects do you work on?
Our projects range from simple loft conversions or extensions to total remodelling.
We work with all types of building old and new including listed buildings in Bath and can produce designs to suit all budgets. we mould our services to meet your needs.
We have vast experience with Local Planning Authorities such as Bath & North East Somerset Council. 98% of our residential extension applications were approved in 2014.
We are regulated by CIAT & the RICS. We are also members of the trading standards scheme BUY WITH CONFIDENCE.
Western Building Consultants were appointed as architectural designer to gain planning permission to convert the historic upper floors above the retail space of
Beehive Yard into residential accommodation units. The building is constructed in solid brick and steel portal frame and is a former industrial Tramshed.
The existing frame layout and fenestration presented a number of challenges to the finalised layouts and the finalised flats had to be refined to create a workable
solution.
Vector buildings is an industrial relic of Bristol’s past Tobacco trade and had been converted in part to office accommodation. The building is a red brick solid walled industrial building with a steel
frame.
project was clearly constrained by the historic fabric of the walls, planned by another designer to provide a high density of residential units to make the development viable. The design involved the
use of internal atrium’s and was also constrained by the internal structural framework. Our task was to navigate the existing structure, design the extended roof whilst providing building
regulation compliance to the approved layouts. This was also balanced against utilising as much of the historical character of the building in the designs as possible such as the exposed brickwork to give a loft style appearance.
Western Building Consultants were appointed as Architectural Designer for the construction stages, CDM principal designer and party wall consultant to the developer.
Some of the more interesting elements were tackled by creating glass fireproof lobbies within the upper levels of the mezzanine to protect those levels and bring them in line with performance standards.
Western Building had to develop and calculate a solution for natural ventilation and smoke ventilation, where we were able to bring ventilation in at a low level and use actuated windows
within the fire corridor and atrium roof windows to ensure adequate natural ventilation was achieved. This included prescribing a fire panel and control device to each flat linked to the
communal system.
The alterations to create these performance standards also had to be managed against the competing structural engineering requirements for the building and the existing historical features,
to ultimately develop a unique and tailored solution to this building.
I have enjoyed working with Western Building Consultants on a complicated project for about 4 years now. During that time they have without fail given me a high level of customer service, being welcoming, responsive and competent.
As a customer I particularly appreciate that WBC are value for money. They also stick to their quotes and don’t add a lot of extras. Help and advice is always forthcoming generally at no extra charge.
Thank you so much for all your advice today. That was so very helpful, not only with the structure of the property but especially with your comments about the whole set up. I can see that we were within a gnat’s whisker of entering a complete can of worms… Thank you so much for saving us from making a stupid mistake.
Thanks to you both your help in this matter – you were both extremely efficient and accommodating (more than I can say about other companies I contacted).
Your professionalism has been invaluable, thank you.
Thank you for your extremely comprehensive report. It will be of immense help when deciding on the works we would like to carry out on the property. We have decided to take your advice and move into the property and live in it for a while to assess our requirements.
Thank you for your prompt service, could not have asked or expected more. I note your comments and in an ideal world everything would have been 1.
Will not hesitate to recommend you, and will make a point of letting the estate agent know this too.
I just wanted to say thank you very much for your thorough and clear report. It is written in an informative and jargon free way which has made a pretty hefty document ultimately digestible and easy to understand.
Hello Kerry, Many thanks for the report and invoice receipt.
Please pass on my thanks to Paul for the survey. In my working life, I read many stock survey reports – I work with social housing providers to set up their asset management strategies – and this was one of the clearest and most comprehensive I’ve seen.
Dear Paul, Thank you so much for your fast response and the detail in your report is very very good and greatly appreciated. Thank you for your efforts.
Many thanks for your swift and thorough return of this report, we so appreciate you getting this back to us on such a tight turn around this week, and on the first read it seems extremely clear and comprehensive.
Hi Kerry / Paul, Thanks for sending the survey across.
I’d also like to thank you for your excellent service and professionalism. I considered many surveyors before choosing to proceed with you and it’s clear that I made the right choice. I won’t hesitate to recommend you to family, friends and colleagues in the future.
“We have commissioned three building surveys from WBC until we found the house that was right for us and all thanks to you”
I never expected so much detail, the report was really great and there were things I never even considered, even being in the construction trade
The report was brilliant and went into so much detail, having had reports from other surveyors in the past this report was far superior
“Highly recommended. Good customer service over the phone and by email. Very quick: from the initial phone call booking a site visit to me receiving the calculations took only 8 days.”
“We used James Dean …Western Building Consultants as an architect. Very good”
“Good surveyors & structural engineers that we used were www.westernbuildingconsultants.com
We were really happy with them, they came highly recommended by several people”
“Excellent service and help from the initial design/planning stage through to the end of all works”
“I can recommend Western Building Consultants. They are great on structural calculations, advice and technical drawings to whatever extent you want. We used them for advice and calcs for taking out our main load bearing wall downstairs. They were recommended several times over when we started looking.”
“Superb, professional, efficient, friendly, positive”
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