Phoenix Barn Swithland

In the enforcement notice, the Council had issues with the design, location, size, mass, scale and appearance of the barn. They also argued the building was not designed for agriculture. Why do you think the Council didnt raise these objections at the time they approved all the elevation plans, structural plans and location plans years before ?

Because they screwed up the application from the start then tried to cover up their mess. When locals in the village complained about the screw up, they decided it was easier to pull the barn down than stand behind their written approvals.

I live at Woodhouse Eaves and often walk by phoenix barn when I am taking the dog; I have watched the progress of this project since the building started and now complete admire the craftsmanship that has gone into the building and how appropriate the building looks within Swithland. My wife informs me that your barn has been on the news and it is at risk of being pulled down, is this true?

(09-09-2009 03:13 PM)Guest Wrote: [ -> ]I live at Woodhouse Eaves and often walk by phoenix barn when I am taking the dog; I have watched the progress of this project since the building started and now complete admire the craftsmanship that has gone into the building and how appropriate the building looks within Swithland. My wife informs me that your barn has been on the news and it is at risk of being pulled down, is this true?

Hello and thanks for your very kind support. Unfortunately there is a demolition order on Phoenix Barn and we lost the planning appeal. We hope to win a case against the Council for maladministration which will at least give us a chance to get our costs back on the barn. It will delay our business plans by at least a further year if not longer and im not sure where we will store all our equipment apart from outside in the field. Until we do have a safe barn to keep our equipment, tools, animal feed, grain etc we cannot progress our business plans. We cannot believe that the Council were able to put a demolition order on a building that they had granted permission for us to build in the first place. We would understand it if we had built something different to what was agreed, but it is an accepted fact that what was built is what was agreed and signed off by the Council. Please do ask friends to leave comments on this forum to help bolster our case. Thanks, Charles.

Sorry I've not been in touch before, just so gutted for you I didn't know what to say. I know the business was your dream and the amount of planning that went into it took years of hard work. The demolition order seems beyond belief. I am also devastated as it's the most inspiring project I've ever had the pleaseure of working on & fits better into the surrounding area than any other new building. I'm really proud of what we built & would hate to see it destroyed.

If it's any help to you Helen Robinson made a few site visits during the construction process & only seemed to focus on the negative side of things i.e. she said "you won't fit a tractor in there", however she didn't have a tape measure or know the height of a tractor. In fact from what she said, I dont think she has even stood next to a tractor before in her life. She was also under the impression that we were fitting patio doors to the opening of the combine harverster entrance. This was because some local in the village had reported that to her. I explained this was not the case as the drawings that had been approved detailed what was to be in place which was barn doors !!
On each of Helens visits to the site she appered to be viewing the property as a dwelling and not as a barn as dictated by the plans.

If I can be of any further help to you Charles, please do not hesitate to get in contact. I really hope that the barn does not come down. Good luck.

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A lot of people locally also think that the design of the property is so much like a dwelling house than a barn that your long term plans would be to have a 1st floor put in and convert it into a house after applying for "change of use" a few years down the road. A house in Swithland that size would cost getting close to a £1,000,000.

Land bought at agricultural prices, building costing ?£250,000. Value if a house in a few years time £1,000,000?

(05-10-2009 02:35 PM)Guest Wrote: [ -> ]A lot of people locally also think that the design of the property is so much like a dwelling house than a barn that your long term plans would be to have a 1st floor put in and convert it into a house after applying for "change of use" a few years down the road. A house in Swithland that size would cost getting close to a £1,000,000.

Land bought at agricultural prices, building costing ?£250,000. Value if a house in a few years time £1,000,000?

Hello, and thank you for your comments. If you do wish to make a number of comments, it would be beneficial to register although it is not compulsory to do so. Here is my reply.

(1) If a dwelling house the size of Phoenix Barn was worth around £,1000,000, then why would I buy the land for £200,000, then spend a further £300,000 to build the barn putting the total cost of the barn at £500,000 ? I have owned the land since November 2003. If I had wanted to make money on property development then surely I would have gone out and spent £500,000 on any property, then sat on it until 2009 and sold it for double its value in 2003 ? Surely that would be a lot easier than building a stunning barn, then converting it to a house ?
(2) It has been a dream since I was a child to own a farm, but I never wanted to operate a traditional type of farm as there is little money in growing traditional crops or rearing typical farm stock. I realised that there was a real opportunity to capitalise on a niche market business of growing Asian specialty vegetables to supply the ever growing Chinese population in the Loughborough and surrounding areas. I am a business man and make no apology for wanting to grow such a business. There is nothing wrong with setting up new and innovative businesses. Local authorities should welcome the ingenuity, drive and ambition of such individuals instead of looking at them with suspicion.
(3) I have been in business for nearly 15 years and during that time I have built up a strong group of companies. Every business that I have set up has proven over the years to be a great success. I have the belief that for the long term development of any business it is necessary to invest in the core of the business to ensure the business can grow and flourish. You may not agree, but from my business experience this has always proven to be the winning formula. This and good research, drive and ambition will always create a successful business. It is for this reason that we approached the Council in 2004 and sent in our planning forms for the barn. With a decent building, we could start from a solid foundation to grow a fantastic niche market business.

I could have built a steel monstrosity, but that is not what I am about. I have strong feelings about conserving the natural beauty of Swithland. It would have been wrong to have built a steel shed in such a location and if we had of done so, there would have been uproar by the locals. I wanted to build a barn of outstanding character that would compliment the style of the village and be a statement for our holding.

The building was designed to incorporate an office, staff quarters, toilet and storage and working areas for our equipment. There is nothing new about those plans. The Council approved the plans and gave us the official go ahead for the barn to be built. Is it fair therefore that the Council gave the go ahead to build the barn, approved the plans, visited site on numerous occasions and then all of a sudden demand the barn be demolished once it was nearly finished ? If at the outset the Council had raised issue with the shape of the barn and had sat down with us to amend the design then we would have been more than happy to have done so. In fact, the plans were with the Council for several years and anyone in Swithland could have commented on those plans or the shape and style of the building, but nobody ever did. Is it fair therefore that through the maladministration of the Council I suffer a losses of hundreds of thousands of pounds and my agricultural venture is put effectively “out of business” ? You need to look at the situation with less blinkered vision. Try to look at the whole picture and try to understand the whole story.

(4) What would be the point in trying to go for change of use a few years after building an agricultural barn ? It would be a foolish move to try and get change of use a few years after building an agricultural building as any such move would certainly be refused. I offered the Council a 20 years agreement that the barn would be used for nothing but agricultural use because it has always been my intention to use the barn for our own business. Tell me where I can go and buy a building in the Swithland, Rothley, Cropston area that would be suitable for running our agricultural business ? The fact is I spent years searching for such a building and up to 2004 never found such a building. What do you do if you cant find a suitable building ? My solution was to find a suitable piece of land a build a building. That is what we did.

So in conclusion, I paid a high price for the land in Swithland simply because it was the perfect location for our intended barn and business base. The stream provides water for the free range pork part of the business, there is good access to main street, and the western side of the land is well secluded from the road ( an ideal site to put up a barn ). There would be no profit in building what we have built if we were intending to convert the building. In fact to convert such a building would be very expensive indeed considering that the roof has absolutely NO insulation in it whatsoever. After the enforcement notice was issued I was told by the rroofing contractors that if someone did convert such a building building, then it require that the all the slate on the roof be removed to make room for the necessary insulation under building regulations. Can you imagine what that would cost ? If I had wanted to make money from property development then I could have bought any old property up to the value of £500,000 and sat on it until 2009 and sold it for at least double in 2009.

I welcome any further questions about the business and the barn and would like to thank you once again for your straight forward questions.

Charles White

I think most people reading this forum can see what is really going on here. Local political influence over the Council. Who lives within close proximity of this barn and has strategic control or considerable influence over the actions of the Council ? I suspect this is the root of the Council's actions.