A piece of good news that is of great interest personally and I’m sure of interest to many people planning conversions and other projects, is that the installation of solar thermal & PV panels, combined-heat & power systems, biomass systems and water & ground source heat pumps will no longer require planning permission, so long as there is no negative impact on neighbours or the area. In future these developments will be included as permitted developments under the General Permitted Development Order.

Negative impact is assessed in part by the profile of any panels installed, roof mounted panels must not extend more than 200 millimetres from the roof and ground mounted panels must not be more than four metres above ground level or more than five metres from the boundary of the property. Additionally, equipment should be sited to ‘minimise its effect on the amenity of the area’ and ‘removed as soon as reasonably practicable‘ if no longer used. (Italicised quotes are from the Statutory Instrument, see below for more details).

Wind turbines and air source heat pumps are not included within the current legislation, but will follow.

This came into effect from April 6th 2008.

Good news for me as I’m currently waiting for a response from the local planners asking if I need permission for ‘in-roof’ panels. Having read through the Statutory Instrument I don’t.

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Solar power homes get the go-ahead for April

The actual legislation: Statutory Instrument

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Llandeilo has been grabbing headlines recently with talk of launching its own currency under the banner of being the first transition town in Wales. The transition town movement concerns itself with tackling two major challenges, Peak Oil and Climate Change. The approach to tackling these challenges is by broadly applying permaculture principles, considering energy efficiency and methods for local self sufficiency in food, waste disposal and manufacturing. The goals are to reduce the carbon footprint of transition communities and to prepare them to be better disposed to weather any negative effects of a future impacted by reduced availability of oil and oil based products.

The Llandeilo project began in Spring 2007 and has since spawned a number of sub-groups:

* Allotments
* Food and Farming
* Renewable Energy
* Permaculture
* Afallon Teilo - a project to encourage the local production of apples
* ‘Heart and Soul’ - the psychology of Energy Descent
* Diwylliant a Iaith - (Welsh) culture and language

In terms of analogy and comparison, Jonathan Dawson in an article for the New Statesman draws an elegant branch on the family tree of sustainable communities between small transitional communities (ecovillages to use Jonathan’s terminology) and medieval monasteries.

Interesting times and interesting opportunities.

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I have an urge to further extend and heighten these dry stone walls. I’ve always fancied living behind a wall. I think there’s something primal going on here.

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I can’t believe that April is drawing to a close and I’ve not managed an update since the end of March. On the basis of my laziness I’ll save time a update the whole month in one go.

The first fix electrics are now completed and plumbing is to follow over the next couple of weeks. […]

Peak Oil is a notional point in time. It is reached when the rate of global oil production hits its maximum level from which the only way is down. In these terms downs means escalating costs of extraction & production, restricted supply, unfulfilled demand and increasing prices.
The foundations of the peak oil concept lie in […]

Photo = light & voltaic = electricity
Photovoltaics is a technology that utilises light to generate electricity. As such it is an essential tool in the development of more sustainable methods of electricity generation. Simplistically, electricity is generated by the photons from sunlight colliding with electrons within the solar cell.
Solar cells are solid state devices that […]

Beautiful things electrical cables… especially when they mean that you’re making some progress with the first fix.

If you enjoyed that post, then read these…Oak Beam ~ The Movie on January 14th, 2008Inspired by my first outing onto YouTube and dazzled by the 143 people who’ve so far taken the time to watch the minute long […]

Being a fan of lists, we’ve been using one to keep track of those items that we need to specify and decisions we need to make in regard to the detailed design of the conversion ~ attention to detail.
This is the current position:

Ground or Air Source Heat Pump that is the question. >> Answer = […]

Progress has become a rather abstract term recently.
Nothing has physically changed at the barn, but plans are being made and wheels (hopefully) put in motion. I’ve not helped things by changing plans for the heating … hopefully we’ll get things out of the doldrums and moving again in April…
If you enjoyed that post, then […]

I now organise nearly all my documents for the project using Google Documents. These are mainly letters and the spreadsheets I use to juggle finances and it works well for me. As I access the internet from at least two different places most days the ability to store documents on the web is perfect for […]