New HQ with Office Space, Training Facilities and Classroom Teaching Areas
Number4Group | Hope Farm | Hardwick | Lincoln
PLANNING PERMISSION GRANTED! We are thrilled to have secured full planning permission for our client Number4Group for their 5,000sqft office and training centre in Hardwick near Lincoln.
Our client, The Number4Group are a major local employer and include Train4 and 4Society, a social enterprise and provider of skills training for organisations including The Department for Education and the Skills Funding Agency, Lincolnshire County Council and a range of colleges nationwide.
The organisation works with job centres and local authorities to provide sector-specific skills development, qualifications, re-training programmes and refresher courses. This includes targeting the long-term unemployed plus assisting young adults with practical training that increases their access to work placements and apprenticeship schemes. In practice, this has allowed many young people to improve their life chances and employability.
Many of the people attending these courses benefitted from being able to work on the buildings within the application site itself, to restore them and bring them back into use. Some were even awarded their qualifications at the site!
What did we achieve? Planning was awarded retrospectively for the full redevelopment and change of use of the site, and whilst it was considered to be a departure from the development plan the proposal achieved near unanimous support from the council’s planning committee.
Significant Constraints - This was a complex site! Key Constraints that we successfully addressed and overcame included unconsented building works, departure from the local plan, development in a flood risk area, development in the open countryside and justification for the loss and conversion of historic farm buildings.
Our robust and detailed planning case set out the clear benefits of the development and argued that despite its isolated rural setting in the open countryside the benefits of the new uses and renovations outweighed any harm or policy conflicts. Both the planners and the planning committee fully agreed!
"First class planning advice and outstanding service from start to finish – we can’t recommend Fytche-Taylor Planning highly enough. This planning approval was incredibly important to our business and the team at FTP worked with us to carefully understand our needs, and then meticulously prepared a solid planning application. The decision was achieved quicker than we ever expected, and the quality of their communication and attention to detail has been brilliant – thank you!"
Timescales – This incredible result was achieved in just 5 months from start to finish:
- Our first site meeting with the clients was held on 3rd May 2022.
- Site surveys, aerial drone photos and inspections completed during June 2022.
- The full Planning Application was prepared and submitted by the end of July 2022 (including all of the required technical reports, Flood Risk Assessment and structural surveys).
- Recommendation to approve received mid September 2022
- 5th October 2022 – Approved by West Lindsey District Council Planning Committee
- 6th October – Decision Notice received and full planning permission granted
Planning & Design Services
The services provided by Fytche-Taylor Planning included;
- Initial site appraisal and report to client on the key risks and opportunities
- Site visits, drone photography and measured surveys
- Coordination of the Topographic and Flood Risk reports (using trusted partners)
- All design work, architectural plans and drawings in-house
- Preparation of the full planning application, planning statement and DAS
- Submission to the LPA and liaison through to determination
- Single point of contact for our client through the full project.
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