Last week Harry arranged a meeting with our conservation officer Andrew Tucker. This was the first time we had met him as we always had wanted to so many months ago as it's generally the best thing to meet face to face! As Harry said "Well, it went quite well and I thought he was far nicer than I imagined."
Both Flora and I kept pretty quiet and let Harry and Andrew discuss their points of view. This is what I always thought an architect would do i.e. the negotiation and gentle teasing out of what the planners are prepared to concede. Having read Andrew Tuckers letter today they are not now adverse to our house being part of the north wall ..... ahhhh rewind 10 months when they were as the house was on a different axis. Anyway it looks like there will be to-ings and fro-ings but we are both more optimistic than we have been in many months.
Harry's design will certainly look more traditional than I probably would want but I'm now going to concentrate on building a good looking four bedroom house that we are both happy with. Trying to speculate what the final design will look like is simply impossible. I've wasted far too much time with and without Flora going into details that at the end of the day have had to be changed or not considered. I'm absolutely determined to sick to my guns by making a very sustainable house that takes little energy to run in the most simple way. I do think that we're have a lovely exterior designed but it will then have to be worked on dramatically before applying for building regs to come up to a level 4 or higher standard.
http://www.breeam.org
