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The Rural Planning Practice provides specialist planning advice in Kent and Gloucestershire for development in market towns, villages and the countryside.
United Kingdom
3.9
3 reviews
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Great advice and lovely team.
While we didn't necessarily get the answer we were hoping for the team were great and so responsive. They gave us an idea of what to expect early on from the site visit and we were able to make a plan. Christina was very kind with our ongoing list of questions, we can't recommend the team enough!
We are now able to start making our beautiful yard a construction site!
We engaged the rural planning practice to help with a retrospective planning application. Quite apart from being very expensive, we found that they dont really *listen* when you tell them things. We had to repeat a lot of points before they were taken on board.
Worse still, they didn't listen to the council enforcement representative and thus had us complete the wrong kind of application (a pre-app rather than a Lawful Development Certificate application).
By the time we parted ways we had spent £4802 and succeeded only in delaying resolution by months and making matters with the council worse.
We told them how we felt and even went into specifics. Their only response was to say they were 'sorry' to receive the email and to wish us luck.
Frankly, we feel let down to the point of having been cheated by RPP. If you need a planning consultant, don't rely on websites, try to find reviews (I couldn't find ANY for these folk). Your council wont make reccomendations, but you can look on their planning portal for approved plans, and see who's been getting the job done.
Note after RPP response: client confidentiality (or lack thereof) aside the issue here is that I engaged RPP to advise and ensure that I did what the council wanted. They failed, and left me worse off than when I started.
Reply from The RPP
We are obviously sorry to read Mr Snelling’s review.
The case related to a horse yard in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty where several parts including the outdoor school and some of the stables and sheds had no planning permission. The outdoor school was also built within the ancient woodland buffer for which there was no planning justification. The muck heap was in a location where the run off was not controlled which is a potential pollutant and a further concern because of its proximity to the ancient woodland.
The yard is not particularly well laid out and many of the buildings are very dilapidated. There was a lot of use made of external storage which did not have planning permission either.
Not all parts of the unauthorised development were immune from enforcement so a pre app was submitted with approval from Mr Snelling to test whether some of the more dilapidated buildings could be replaced with more functional structures and consequent improvement in the appearance of the yard which would have been a planning gain. The intention was to submit a certificate for the immune buildings and apply for planning permission to regularise or achieve new buildings within the yard area for the rest.
The work included several site visits, meeting with the enforcement officer, preparation of a fairly detailed document plus the start of the statutory declaration for the Certificate of Lawful use and Development application.
As with most disputes there are two sides to the story. The email I received from Mr Snelling when he terminated our arrangement did not suggest he was interested in discussing matters any further hence the response to him.
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