House
refurbishment
in Chalfont St Giles, HP8

Improvement works that change nothing but the inside of a building fall outside development under the 1990 Act, so refitting rooms, services and finishes indoors does not normally call for planning permission. Listing changes that, since works to a listed building can need listed building consent, and the Neighbourhood Plan's 2017 schedule ranges from Milton's Cottage at Grade I to Grade II buildings such as Bucks House on the High Street and Hampden Cottage in Deanway.

Outside walls and roofs in the village centre conservation area are another matter. Where an alteration needs permission, Local Plan Policy CA1 expects natural materials of the same kind, colour and texture as those already in the building, and it will not allow synthetic substitutes; and because the area is article 2(3) land, the householder right to enlarge a house does not cover cladding its walls in render, timber, tiles, stone or plastic.

Jordans adds a layer of its own. The Neighbourhood Plan explains that the Management Scheme run by Jordans Village Limited requires the company's approval for alterations to properties on the village estate, privately owned ones included.

If the brief starts to drift towards demolition, different rules apply. In the open Green Belt beyond the village, Policy GB7 accepts a replacement dwelling in principle only where it is not materially larger than the one it replaces, once permitted development has been allowed for, and the Neighbourhood Plan records local opposition to smaller houses being knocked down for very large ones. The wider Green Belt tests are on our Chiltern page.

Sources: legislation.gov.uk (The National Archives): Town and Country Planning Act 1990, section 55 (meaning of development); GOV.UK (Planning Practice Guidance): When is permission required?; Chalfont St Giles Parish Council: Neighbourhood Plan for Chalfont St Giles Parish 2014-2036; Chiltern District Council: Chiltern District Local Plan, adopted 1 September 1997 (alterations 29 May 2001; consolidated September 2007 and November 2011); legislation.gov.uk: GPDO 2015 (SI 2015/596), Schedule 1 Part 1, Article 2(3) land (latest available revised); legislation.gov.uk: GPDO 2015 (SI 2015/596), Schedule 2 Part 1, development within the curtilage of a dwellinghouse (latest available revised)

Stonewell's Farm, the one secular building the study thinks has come down from the medieval village, is a hall-house framed in timber in the 15th or 16th century, and the county's landscape assessment notes Tudor houses in black and white among the Misbourne villages. In frames of that age a partition may be structural, and an old floor can carry more load than it appears to.

For that reason the measured survey records the frame, the floor structure and the state of the joints before a single opening is planned. Sound timber is repaired where it stands, and any new work is detailed so that it can be told apart from the old.

Later houses carry their own details. On the short Edwardian terraces of Sycamore Road the study points to bays, low eaves and white-painted render; elsewhere it describes wide-fronted detached houses on very large plots, some with pitched roofs and red brick walls. Those are the features we draw first and design around.

Renewing windows and doors, or putting in a new or replacement heating system, can each need building regulations approval, so even a like-for-like renewal on an old cottage is checked against the regulations as well as the conservation area.

Sources: Chiltern and South Bucks District Councils (hosted by Buckinghamshire Council): Chiltern & South Bucks Townscape Character Study Part 3, Chiltern Settlements (November 2017); Buckinghamshire County Council and Chiltern District Council (hosted by Buckinghamshire Council): Landscape Character Area 19.2, Lower Misbourne Settled River Valley; GOV.UK: Building regulations approval - when you need approval

In the 2018 flood assessment, a number of properties and farm buildings by the Misbourne lie in Flood Zone 3a, and the more severe 3b zone extends to properties on the High Street. Making buildings at risk flood resilient is one of the approaches it puts forward.

On a ground floor near the river we therefore choose floor finishes, socket heights, boiler positions and plaster that recover better after water, and we keep the consumer unit above the likely flood level where the house allows.

Sources: Chiltern and South Bucks District Councils: Strategic Flood Risk Assessment Level 1 (November 2018)

Plenty of refurbishment work needs no approval. The government's guide names most repairs, replacements and maintenance, though not heating systems, oil tanks, fuse boxes or glazing units; extra sockets and light points other than near baths and showers; and like-for-like swaps of baths, WCs, basins and sinks. Renewing a fuse box together with the electrics connected to it is, by contrast, on the list that may need approval.

The safety and energy-efficiency standards apply whether or not formal approval is required, and skipping an approval that was needed could leave you without the compliance certificates that may be wanted when the house is sold.

Our London team, a practice of architects, designers and structural engineers employed in-house and allied with Hampstead Chartered Surveyors & Building Consultancy, takes on whole-house refurbishments in Chalfont St Giles and manages them from Finchley Road in Hampstead, NW3, rather than from anywhere in the county. Should the work need planning permission or listed building consent, Buckinghamshire Council makes the decision, and the building regulations side is inspected and signed off by Buckinghamshire Council's building control service or by a privately engaged, registered approver.

On site, rooms are stripped in a planned sequence, wiring, pipework and heating are renewed together while the floors are up, and decoration waits until the last inspection has been passed.

Outside Chalfont St Giles, and in London rather than Buckinghamshire: Project example: Belsize Park, NW3. That project of ours is a Victorian townhouse on five storeys whose owners wanted the whole interior refurbished, together with basement, extension and loft work, as its case study records.

Sources: GOV.UK: Building regulations approval (printable guide); GOV.UK: Building regulations approval - when you need approval; Buckinghamshire Council: Building regulations and control; Hampstead Renovations: Belsize Park Gardens, NW3 case study