RUMCars Forum

General Category => Unusual Microcar Discussion => Topic started by: Big Al on November 05, 2012, 08:34:32 AM

Title: A move at last? Enough to clear the decks
Post by: Big Al on November 05, 2012, 08:34:32 AM
Looks like I have finally resolved a move to break, coming on, 7 years of immobility due to the failure to resolve the family Estate which owned my frozen assets (awwwol). Subject to contract completing I have found an unmodified 1000 sq ft bungalow on the edge of a small Vale village about 4 miles from Faringdon with a 1/5th of an acre. A good blank canvas on which to put my long stored 47 ft wood garage and create a matching building as a workshop/store/den. Should have the budget to eventually modify the bungalow to fit that traditional style of classic Vale support buildings and greatly improve it. Alongside is a disused paddock complete with tumbled corrugated steel stabling and pig sty, which I will have a go at buying. Perfect for the task in hand. Even be able to put up my windmill in a windy place, which can have as much as a 6Kw generator on it - another topic and one of some Government interference and irritation in terms of generating to feed back into the grid. Yes you can, potential £3000 - kerching, but no you cannot as no system exists that is viable, affordable and with a licence to comply with the rules - how strange..... Little brown envelopes?

So while I am in dialogue with Allerdale Council Planners in Cumbria as to a choice of planning and construction it looks like the objective up there will change from prime dwelling to be a second small holiday flat/cottage with attached mezzanine shed as garage (well its rude not to if its there) with rentable adjoining buildings or a complete sell off of the plots to re invest elsewhere. My elderly Aunt seems keen for me to get involved in the remains of their family hill farm in Snowdonia, which is partly converted into lets, now needing more investment. Her family are firmly lodged in America and Canada and will want money when she finally departs this earth. Cannot do both and Snowdonia is an easier drive from here and the property is in a fantastic position overlooking the Mawddachs Estuary. Though lacking garaging, it has got mezzanine mountainsides adjacent. I could take up a new hobby of teaching sheep to hang glide or something. Baaaaaaaaaaah! Thump!

Anyway, the upshot of all this personal rubbish is that having got my reduced rented shed ready for lock-down next year, once we have space to load the mezzanine area in there, I have been able to look at more remote storage about the place. Several things I forgotten about have come back to light lurking under sheets or behind junk in checking out old stashes and it is clearly time to rationalize this scattered collection of unused machinery. You will notice that the list of cars at the bottom of this missive has altered. This is because I have had a little deal with a Microcar collector and he is taking a few vehicles on, in a job lot deal. Clears some space and loads the bank ready for a 'barn raisin', yee ha! That means I do not have to sell the White ex Tony Bailey Schmitt as I was tempted to. It is simpler to specialize in a few marques than own lots of differing ones. Hours of fun tinkering in my shed putting these back to the road to look forward too. Yet there are more big cars to come out and be cleared away before then. Why have I got some of this stuff, like stocks of new Koni dampers for Ferrari 308 GT4/GTS or Jaguar Mk2 etc? A load of Citroen DS stuff I had forgotten about - was going to buy one so obviously shoved it in a car for a rainy day. I was a worse Magpie than I thought two decades ago.
Title: Re: A move at last? Enough to clear the decks
Post by: Barry on November 05, 2012, 04:38:16 PM
Al
You may need planning permission (and building regs for any construction in your new garden over 30 sq meters (and more than 4m high).
The answer is to have two 29,99 sqm sheds close together.  Once everyone is used to them you can fill-in the gap as a sort of 30 sq m enclosed car port giving you 90 sq m without planning.
Title: Re: A move at last? Enough to clear the decks
Post by: Big Al on November 06, 2012, 10:50:26 AM
Oh the planners will love me. I have no choice but to be legal with 47ft by 18ft garage. The bungaloid I could do under permitted development, but I am tempted to go for something a bit more radical, not least to make the most of the potentially fantastic view of the Berkshire Downs (none of that visible from the Vale of which is now in Berkshire!). However, you are right, once they have gone away with their clip boards, there are some games to play.

It is interesting to note that official figures show that there is in increase in building without planning consent, as people are fed up of the interference, delays and cost of the planning process and are prepared to argue the case after completing their building work, and not complying with resulting orders until the Council turn up with Vogons in diggers. Often the council cannot be bothered to go that far, as it costs money, and if it is not recoverable from the law breaker the incentive is not great. I recall a planner and policeman getting shot dead by a guy put in that situation some years ago around Tyneside. His boss is now head of planning at Allerdale, Cumbria.
Another Gov system unravelled by inefficiency directed from the centre. Something should be done.

I know of two people, microcar owners, now living in Bungalows built inside agricultural barns, for instance. Both have been heckled, but little more, as they both show no assets other than an agricultural building that would need to be destroyed to remove the illegal building. Ha, get out of that one! Sid lives in a series of old van body-shells in the middle of a few fields of scrub-land with his Land Rovers. Then there is Jules who moves between three privately owned sets of fitted out sheds in his camper. Worth a fortune. None of these guys pay council tax etc as they do not exist as domestic property owners due to someone else's silly system. Who is the fool? The proviso seems to be not to be married, though camp follows are OK. DAre I suggest another cost of dependant females, who happily demand the camper-van - temporary, OK with added status, as opposed to permanent non residential status, not OK, people will talk.
Title: Re: A move at last? Enough to clear the decks
Post by: Bob Purton on November 06, 2012, 11:39:29 AM
Shouldnt this be off topic Al?
Title: Re: A move at last? Enough to clear the decks
Post by: richard on November 06, 2012, 01:27:53 PM
That would not be fair ! To marcus off topic lounge 
Title: Re: A move at last? Enough to clear the decks
Post by: Bob Purton on November 06, 2012, 02:14:14 PM
That would not be fair ! To marcus off topic lounge  

Oh alright then, room 101!  :D :D
Title: Re: A move at last? Enough to clear the decks
Post by: skootashaun on November 08, 2012, 10:53:00 PM
Glad to hear you are on the move to a new kingdom soon Al.

Please don't forget, I have a bambox sized space over here that needs filling  ;)

 ;D