OUR HOUSE IN CORREZE
From planning to building. In their fourth article Peter and Lesley Wilson bring us up to date, from the planning permission submission to getting the builders in.
It is Bastille Day 2009 and we had just arrived in Segur le Chateau to spend most of the Summer there.
Our contact with Steve Davies had already borne fruit as we had sent him all the paperwork from the failed applications and he had responded in a very positive way. He had arranged to visit us and also to meet with the Batiments de France planners in Tulle. The visit was planned for early August and so we settled down in the village feeling positive about the future.
The day of the visit came -and it was wet. Steve, and his wife Julia, arrived in Segur and found the house of our friends, Kim and Pip, who pointed them in the right direction to find us. We had a chat, discussed possible scenarios and a few photographs were taken. We arranged to meet in Tulle the next day for the make-or-break meeting. The place we were to visit was close by the cathedral in the centre of the town. I took a photograph in case I had to put it on the wall and throw darts at it!
It is the building on the left beyond the parked car. We trekked up four flights of stairs and found a room with a lady sitting at a desk. Steve explained that we had an appointment with M Buffet. The next twenty minutes were a bit of a blur. Steve, speaking fluent French, seemed to hit it off with M Buffet and very soon he was agreeing to the requests for two dormer windows and two velux windows (an increase from the one we thought we were going to get). I was delighted to see M Buffet write on my file that he had agreed to the proposed changes to the roof. The last few minutes of the meeting were taken up with a discussion of French politics and then we shook hands and left the building. Lesley and Julia were waiting for us at the café on the square and so we joined them and told them the news.
Now it was a case of submitting a new application and waiting for the result. During the next couple of weeks Steve put together the proposal and we handed it in to the Mairie on August 18th. We then enjoyed the last two weeks of the summer attending village events such as the Jazz Concert.
After a few days at home we received notification that the application could take up to three months but, towards the end of October, we found ourselves waiting for the post to arrive each day. Nothing came and, at the end of the month, we set off for a short break at the cottage. Just after we arrived Lesley decided to check the postbox and there it was, a brown envelope stamped Mairie de Segur Le Chateau. M Buffet had been true to his word and, thanks to Steve, three years after we had taken possession of the cottage we had our planning permission.
(nb. The accord was dated the 22nd September so had been in the post box since before the end of this month, even though we had asked for copies to be sent to Peter & Lesleys’ home address the Mairie had not done this. Anybody applying for any sort of permission should bear this in mind; to make sure any communication is sent to the appropriate address. In other words the place where you are likeliest to be. Steve Davies)
What did we learn from the planning experience? If we get involved in another application the first thing we would do would be to contact Steve. It is important to have someone with the knowledge as to what is needed and the skill to produce the application. We would then arrange a face-to-face meeting with the planners – in our case, because of where the cottage is situated, the Batiments de France – and, if your French is not of a high standard, make sure you have a fluent French speaker with you. Finally, get the planners on your side. Steve did this by asking what they would let us have with regard to the dormer and velux windows and the end product was that we got an small extra velux window.
We now had to find builders to do the work. The French builder who had done some work for us in the past was unavailable (it turned out that he was doing a major renovation of the Mairie) and so we looked around for others and were recommended to try a local firm owned by an Englishman. Tony Bridson of Pompadour Construction came to visit us and made positive noises about the project. We also were able to see examples of his work and we were impressed. We asked him to provide a devis and we returned to England. During the last two months of the year there was contact between Steve and Tony who provided him with the details that were needed and a devis was compiled and sent to us. We decided that Pompadour Construction would do the work and, to that end, we hitched a ride with Pip when he travelled to Segur in early January 2010. The day after we arrived the snow came.
The weather prevented us from travelling to Brive for their amazing Foires Grasses but we were able to meet up with Tony, complete the paperwork and get answers to the questions that had arisen. We were also able to find an electrician to work alongside the builders.
As I finish this article the work has just begun and the process of levelling the floor is underway. They aim to complete the main work to create two bedrooms and a bathroom by the end of March. It took us two and a half years to find Steve Davies and then just seven months later the plans have been approved and the building work has begun.