Many people, tired of city life or aspiring to the luxury of a quiet country estate, want to build a home in the countryside. As you might already expect, building a house on undeveloped land comes with a unique set of challenges to overcome before the building process even begins.
We are Johnson Design Partnership, a Shropshire architect firm with experience in designing architectural house plans for rural, countryside homes. In this guide, we’ll cover what you need to do to obtain rural planning permission and build the rural home of your dreams.
The first step when finding land for your home, is finding the right land for sale. Locating land is easy, identifying the land’s titles, covenants, utilities, rights, boundaries, public footpaths, bridleways, and environmental designations is more time-consuming. Having a rural land agent on hand is highly recommended for this step, as they will help you choose suitable land with the best conditions and the least restrictions.
Once you’ve identified ideal land for a home, a site survey from an experienced architect firm is essential before you commit to the purchase. This is essentially a project feasibility study that ensures that environmental conditions are suitable for building a home.
If there are conditions like flooding or erosion present, the architectural house plans can address these.
Don’t complete just yet. It’s highly recommended that you consult with the local authority and receive early feedback regarding your plans to purchase land and build a rural home. They will give you useful feedback that can shape how you plan your project the right way.
Rural land has more strict planning permission rules and requirements than brownfield land. This is to protect the countryside from urban sprawl; rural planning permission forbids mundane developments insensitive to the environment or local area. But it is very possible to gain rural planning permission. To do so, you need an architect firm like Johnson Design Partnership to utilise Paragraph 84 of the NPPF and create an architectural house plan that’s of exceptional quality.
This is what we call an architectural house plan designed to meet the criteria of Paragraph 84. These houses, in particular, are designed to:
The more criteria met, the more likely the Paragraph 84 house will obtain planning permission approval. It’s very difficult to move past this stage without collaboration with an experienced architect firm. If you want to connect utilities like electricity or utilise off-grid resources, an architect will know the best way to factor these into the house design.
In your planning application, you need to clearly outline how the architectural house plan meets the criteria of Paragraph 84. This will be under your Detailed Design and Access Statement, and in the supporting documentation. An architect firm experienced with Paragraph 84 will be able to demonstrate this for you effectively.
Once rural planning permission has been approved and the land is purchased, it’s time to start vetting tradesmen and contractors to build your home. Just because you passed planning permission, doesn’t mean you’re in the clear to do what you want. Rural homes must pass building inspections and regulatory compliance to a higher standard than mundane brownfield developments.
This is another area where an architect firm can help, overseeing the site and ensuring construction matches the architectural house plan. Architects can also act as intermediaries between you and your contractors, resolving issues that arise and ensuring quality control through to construction completion. This can save money in the long run, by avoiding mistakes and corner-cutting that can fail building regulations and be costly to fix.
Our Shropshire architects are highly experienced in the design and execution of beautiful, innovative rural homes across the UK. We are backed up by specialist resources from our pre-qualified supply chain and experience in utilising Paragraph 84 to succeed in the planning permission phase. With Johnson Design Partnership, your dreams of a rural home can become a reality.
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