Old Guernsey vinery clearance and new home plans
Discussion
As per title, hopefully some people will find this of interest. A little bit of background - we bought an old but still in use vinery approx 14 years ago (10,000 sq ft in size). Half was still occupied by an old grower with the other half more or less in disrepair. Eventually they left and the greenhouse was left to fall into further disrepair. Not really having the funds to invest in extensive repairs required in bringing it up to a working greenhouse again, we decided eventually, like 13 years later (!) to make the decision to apply for a change of use...
Pics of the site.
Old packing shed
This is one of six spans, to give an idea of size
Pics of the site.
Old packing shed
This is one of six spans, to give an idea of size
As part of the road to gaining change of use, the planning rules dictated (as part of their many policies) that the vinery be taken down in order to demonstrate that it was no longer fit for use. So after agreeing a quote with a specialist contractor, the heavy machinery came in. The original timescale was originally about 6 weeks, however hundreds of tonnes of crap later, it turned out to be closer to 4 months. They guy in charge had never seen so much plastic come out of a site, as well as concrete and asbestos. Some pics below showing the process, roughly half way through.
mcelliott said:
the planning rules dictated (as part of their many policies) that the vinery be taken down in order to demonstrate that it was no longer fit for use
You can't beat 'policy' when it comes to dumb idiocy. It's like me putting my car into crusher to prove it's 'not fit for use' 
What will you do with all this new space?
Simpo Two said:
mcelliott said:
the planning rules dictated (as part of their many policies) that the vinery be taken down in order to demonstrate that it was no longer fit for use
You can't beat 'policy' when it comes to dumb idiocy. It's like me putting my car into crusher to prove it's 'not fit for use' What will you do with all this new space?
Yes lots of space - the domestic curtilage that we're entitled to is fairly small, and I'll show that in later posts, but where the vinery stood is roughly the size of a football pitch. The policy dictates that it should be turned back to agricultural use, but we have plans to turn a lot of it over to biodiversity, so this would involve wild flowers and tree planting, and possibly an orchard at the bottom end of the field.
So here's some pics from the final stages of the clean up and clearance. Yep, lots of rubbish. Lorry loads and lorry loads, and the weather didn't help. However they did an amazing job under difficult conditions, with nearly all the waste having to be hand separated for recycling etc. What we were left with was a huge open space, that really opened up the rather pretty surrounding area. All we had to do now was formulate an application to planning...
mcelliott said:
The policy dictates that it should be turned back to agricultural use, but we have plans to turn a lot of it over to biodiversity, so this would involve wild flowers and tree planting, and possibly an orchard at the bottom end of the field.
Sounds fair enough. They can hardly refuse something with the word 'biodiversity' in it!Simpo Two said:
mcelliott said:
The policy dictates that it should be turned back to agricultural use, but we have plans to turn a lot of it over to biodiversity, so this would involve wild flowers and tree planting, and possibly an orchard at the bottom end of the field.
Sounds fair enough. They can hardly refuse something with the word 'biodiversity' in it!DirktheDaring said:
Watching with interest, we have travelled many times from Poole to Guernsey and it’s somewhere I would love to retire to.
My parents are there currently for a week and we go in a few weeks after that.
It's a fabulous place to live, the quality of life is very good, always feel really safe here, but not cheap to ether buy property or travel to and from.My parents are there currently for a week and we go in a few weeks after that.
So the site was finally cleared in November last year. We didn't waste any time in doing some basic soft landscaping, mostly involving native species trees and some hedging. A pic of the packing shed with everything cleared around it, all ready for the planning inspectors to do their stuff, and a very basic plan from our architect showing how it would be converted.
Quick update, last week we found out that we were finally granted permission for change of use/conversion of the packing shed which was fabulous news. Still can't quite believe it if I'm honest. The priority now is to get this oil tank and surround removed safely - it's packed with all sorts of nasties so it won't be cheap or quick. Hopefully work will commence in the next month or so. Yesterday we had our present house valued and hoping to hear back on that soon, then tomorrow we have a meeting with our planning advisor on how best to progress.
Quick update, the wheels are turning, albeit slowly. Contractors arrived yesterday to start dismantling the oil tank and its concrete base. They did drain a hell of a lot of contaminated oil from it, which won't be cheap to get rid of, but it is what it is. Now that it's empty all they have to do is slice it up and ship it off to the recyclers. With a bit of luck and a fair wind all should be clean and tidied by the end of the week. After that there will be meetings with various people, mostly about the position of the new house, type of build and size. In the meantime at the other side of the site, we finished sowing the last of the wild flower meadow which is approaching 80m long and 25m wide which should look amazing once fully established. We even gave the grapevine some tlc although still not sure what to do with it. All things considered, happy with progress thus far.
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