Historical, listed buildings: How to get around planning

Planning permission for historical or listed buildings can prove to be a problem in terms of modifications to suit your needs. Due to the protective laws, most plans for any major changes in a listed buildings will be rejected. The hope here is to preserve the historical aspects of the buildings such as its structure and materials. In most cases, the only modifications which can be made to historical or listed buildings are superficial.

This fascinating case study of a project in a listed historical building shows a great work around and solution for not being able to get planning permission.

This staircase is a true carpenter’s masterpiece.

Here you can see one of the best work-around for building in a historical building. All internal modifications were done as a single piece of “furniture” which conforms with all laws relating to building and modifying a historical, listed building.

The fire surround and cornice, by law, has to remain but this was not a problem. Due to the flexibility of building custom pieces which makes up the entire home interior, all “protected” sections of the property were left intact.

As structural changes or even damage to the ceilings and walls was not permitted, the existing space was split into three separate rooms with a false ceiling while the new interior design was aimed to restore the space back to its original proportions, which would have been as one room.