Converted to Class Q - netMAGmedia Ltd

For Kat & Tris Baxter-Smith, the challenge of converting an agricultural barn on the farm belonging to Tris’ family – to his own design – became a lesson in the pros and cons of Class Q permitted development

TEXT ROSEANNE FIELD IMAGES T. BAXTER-SMITH PHOTOGRAPHY

Kat and Tris Baxter-Smith were ready to take a step up the property ladder and find a bigger house, but property prices in the area of Northamptonshire they live in made it almost impossible. With Tris’ family owning a farm, the couple’s thoughts naturally turned to the idea of building a house somewhere on the land.

Unbeknownst to them, green belt rules meant it was highly unlikely they’d ever be granted planning for a new house on the land – but thankfully they found this out before getting stuck into designing their project. “I asked my land agent friend for advice,” says Tris, and he said because we’re outside the village envelope, it would be incredibly difficult.” We had no idea!” Kat adds. “We just thought – we own the field, so we can build a house on it!”

Tris’ friend advised they consider converting a barn on the land which was currently in use as a machinery store, under Class Q permitted development rights, which allow the conversion of an agricultural building into a residential dwelling. “Neither of us had ever thought about that before,” Tris says.

Tris had been hoping to build a bigger barn on the farm – to keep grain dry. However, this meant more obstacles than they had anticipated. “Once you use permitted development rights, that’s it,” Tris explains. “Normally a farm would have permitted development rights to build a barn. But because we used it to build the house, we had to use full planning permission for the barn.”

Despite some extra hoops to jump through, Tris says it “wasn’t onerously costly or difficult.” Likewise, should they choose to extend the house in the future – which they plan to – no matter the size they will have to apply for full planning permission.

Although they found the planners to be particularly strict, they understand why: “They’re becoming more aware of people misusing Class Q,” Tris says. “The legislation is there to allow farmers to free up an income stream or enable future generations to stay within the farm by developing buildings.”

Class Q guidelines don’t allow for the barn to be demolished and rebuilt in the same footprint, but say the building ‘must be suitable for conversion’ — which is determined by each local authority. They weren’t prepared to take any chances, so with the barn’s foundations and steel beams suitable for conversion, they also explained they would reuse all the wood and attempt to retain the cement fibreboard roofing, subject to Building Regs (although the building inspector later told them this unfortunately wouldn’t be possible).

Tris believes the strictness of the guidelines are frustrating for planning officers, constraining them on various elements. “Our planning officer commented on things she would like kept within the building, and our builder was very quick to say things wouldn’t pass Building Regs” he says.

It’s increasingly common for Class Q applications to go through on appeal, which Tris’ land agent friend believes is down to the fact the council isn’t responsible for the appeals process and therefore doesn’t shoulder the responsibility – the situation Tris and Kat found themselves in. “It’s time consuming, it’s stressful, but you just have to get through it,” he says.

Aware of the potential problems, the couple chose to do a pre-application, which although not strictly necessary, Kat says proved fruitful. Originally, they hoped to excavate or build higher in order to accommodate a second
floor, but they were advised these would never be approved: “that saved us time further down the road.”

As well as the pre-app, Kat and Tris held a meeting with the neighbours to explain what they wanted to do. “We were keen to engage them, so that we knew upfront if there were going to be any serious problems,” explains Tris. “If you leave things to planning it can hold the whole thing up.”

DESIGN & BUILD

Although confined by the barn’s footprint, Tris argues it almost made the design easier. “When you’re essentially given a fixed box to work with, it makes you think a bit more creatively; what’s the most efficient way of filling it with rooms.”

They enlisted architect Toby Pateman, primarily to put together the full detailed plans, and builder Nick Burles, but Tris did the design himself. Nick assisted, including advising they would be able to include an existing lean-to and include a mezzanine level – Kat says this has “given us loads more space.” “He’s converted barns before – it was really good to have his experience,” she adds.

Tris had often cycled past Nick’s own barn conversion and posted a note through the door asking who had built it. With his son, Nick agreed to help with their build, and the couple praise him for managing to quickly progress from there. He managed the subcontractors and knew how to negotiate the best rates, including paying by job rather than a day rate. “A lot of stuff got done quicker because of the way he managed things,” she says.

They had a few ‘must-haves’ for the design – for Kat, big windows were important, and Tris wanted a large, open plan living/kitchen/dining area. “You would think it doesn’t make sense if the building you’re working within is confined because you want to maximise the amount of rooms, but actually I don’t think that’s how space works,” he says. “I think our home feels much bigger than it is because you’ve got this massive space, and if we extend in the future we can get those additional rooms.”

They were living in Tris’ small cottage – another conversion he’d undertaken when he inherited it in his early twenties, which he says he learnt a lot from. “It really helped, because I could foresee pitfalls,” he explains. They mortgaged the cottage to pay for the build, and now have tenants.

The barn itself wasn’t in a bad way: “It was relatively modern, the steel and everything was in pretty good condition,” says Tris. “The concrete slab it was built on was judged sufficient so we didn’t need to do any underpinning. We were fortunate.” Although the slab is around seven to eight inches deep, each steel pillar supporting the walls sits on 2.5 metres of concrete, taking the load of the external and (single block) internal walls. “It was probably on the simpler end of barn conversions,” says Kat.

Although not strictly necessary, the couple had a structural engineer come out prior to submitting their planning application, so they could also submit his report, and they believe this helped their case. Tris believes some ‘DIY’ Class Q developments end up not being realised as they don’t meet Building Regs, making them uninsurable and unsaleable – this was something they were determined to avoid.

Their architect helped them with heat loss calculations, informing Nick the level of insulation he needed to make the house as efficient as possible – something the couple were passionate about. “We like the idea of being self-sufficient,” explains Kat. This is why they installed solar panels, battery storage, and an air source heat pump, which Tris confesses “is the bit I got really nerdy on! I really love all this stuff.”

Despite the structure itself being in good condition, the same couldn’t be said for the utilities. The barn had a water supply, but it was deemed to be not compliant due to its low pressure. As well as a better water supply, they wanted to futureproof against rising electricity prices – “we wanted three-phase, as we’ve got a large solar PV system and battery storage.” They opted not to connect to gas, choosing instead to install an air source pump for their underfloor heating and hot water.

They had a minor delay with connecting the utilities as it had to connect via a neighbour’s driveway which links to theirs. Fortunately, the property used to be part of the family’s farmyard and when it was sold they retained access and right of connection.

Managing the project was largely down to Nick, with Kat and Tris in constant communication with him, visiting the site whenever possible. Although both working full time, they both work partly from home and so between them managed to be onsite most days. “There wasn’t really a day go by without a decision, which Nick would never make without asking us first. It took up a lot of our time,” says Kat. “We were really pretty reliant on having somebody that we built up a trust with,” adds Tris.

Work began onsite in July 2021, and the couple moved in in August 2022, with just the patio left to finish. “I never thought it would only take a year,” says Kat. “I’m amazed we managed to get it done so fast.”

There were a few minor issues, partly down to the nature of the barn, where walls weren’t as straight and in line as they would have been had it been originally built as a dwelling. “Working around that gave them some headaches,” Tris admits. They also faced a two month delay getting their windows, due to a shortage of a certain essential component. “We managed to rejig the schedule to work around it somewhat, but we probably lost the best part of a month,” says Tris.

The couple weren’t that ‘hands on,’ in part because of time, but also because they had the budget to spend on getting people in to get things done quicker. “If you do it yourself, you save money, but things take longer,” says Kat. They did a lot of the decorating and finishing, though Tris estimates they could have saved a third of their cost if they’d taken on other elements themselves.

They went roughly £60K over their budget, partly because of materials price rises following Covid, and also because they didn’t want to compromise on certain aspects. “We spent a lot more than we budgeted for on things like the kitchen and flooring,” says Kat.

Builder Nick presented them with an itemised invoice at seven stages during the build, having already put together a full spreadsheet at the start. “It was very transparent,” says Kat. He also took care of ordering the vast majority of materials which, says Tris, has made doing the VAT reclaim much simpler as everything was purchased at a reduced 5% rate.

Tris stresses the importance of triple checking everything in your VAT reclaim, as there’s only one chance to submit it. It wasn’t until putting it together he realised the kitchen had been charged at 20% VAT, but as it was a supply and fit job it should have been 5% – an error that had he not spotted, would have meant their entire claim was scrapped. “It was refunded to us so it was fine, but it’s a little thing to think about,” he warns.

LAYOUT & INTERIOR

The focal point of the home is the open plan living/kitchen/dining area. There’s also a utility room on the ground floor, leading through to a cloakroom, and a study, then the main bathroom. The master bedroom has an adjacent walk-in wardrobe, and a mezzanine level sits above the second bedroom, overlooking the kitchen and living area.

When it came to designing the interior, they knew they wanted it to be modern but to also feel warm despite the high ceilings. Kat used Instagram for inspiration: “I spent a lot of time trawling through barn conversions, getting ideas,” she says. The pink and neutral-coloured kitchen was one of the first things they chose, and much of the colour scheme throughout the house grew from that, as well as the idea of using green to bring the outside in. “Kat was really good at finding inspiration from various sources – stuff that you would never have thought of doing and works so well,” Tris says.

Although enjoyable, Kat admits she found decisions on the interior some of the most stressful – in particular the flooring. They also say that given the chance they’d change the external wood cladding, which they admit they compromised on in terms of price. “We just didn’t have the money to do fancy cladding,” says Kat. “It works, people who see it think it looks great, but you’re never going to be happy with everything,” Tris says. “There’s always going to be things that only the owner will really see.”

Despite some stress, they’re both over the moon with the finished house. While Kat says she’d consider doing it again, Tris isn’t so sure: “I’m pleased that it’s done,” he jokes. “I don’t think I’d rush to do another one!”

For more on Kat & Tris’ self-build journey visit their Instagram @red.kite.barn

HIGH POINT

“Getting our planning permission was nice, as was seeing the windows go in. It felt like such a moment; it actually felt like a house rather than just a barn.”

– Kat Baxter-Smith

LOW POINT

“Probably the time we spent without windows in the winter with all the elements coming in – it was very muddy, not a fun place to be. And Covid, the effect of increased material costs. It was quite a depressing winter to be building in.”

– Tris Baxter-Smith

“Standing there with all this wind and rain coming in. A lot of the build happened last winter and the weather wasn’t great!”

– Kat Baxter-Smith

TRIS & KAT’S PLANNING TIPS

• “Don’t rush to submit the planning application. Make sure you’ve thought of every objection they could give and answer it”

• “Provide evidence with the application like a structural engineer’s report to justify material choices etc.”

• “Don’t go too crazy with what you’re trying to do (especially if it’s Class Q!) – the rules are there, and if planners can see you’re trying to work within those rules they’re much more accommodating”

CONTACTS/SUPPLIERS

BUILDER

Nick Burles, Grassroots Construction

ARCHITECT (DRAWINGS)

Toby Pateman

01933 666300

INSULATION

Celotex

insulation-uk.com

FLOORING

Karndean

www.karndean.com/en-gb/floors