It’s fascinating watching a nearby home refurb project take shape. Those first ideas form and change over the weeks into a proper scheme by excited homeowner. Then comes quotes, and goes without saying that agreed plan, once put out to one or two local design/build studios will become a major project by the time it reaches the next hurdle – the local authority planning authority. I live on the periphary of a local market town, right next to the most northerly village in the next county so the planning officers have to come out quite a way from their HQ. They may differ in their interpretation of current planning laws to their opposite number in surrounding counties. It was interesting to hear the builder talking casually over the fence about being able to get this idea passed or maybe not as we’re in another county – could easily have been another ‘country’ by the sound of the possible pitfalls! But wherever the building inspector is bsed, keeping on his good side and within the law is always the way forward!