Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
Walking up the drive, she saw there was a car outside the house.
A dark-haired woman was standing at the front door, knocking.
As Kate watched, she crossed to the nearest skip and peered inside, as if to see if there was anything in it she wanted.
Well, good luck with that, Kate thought – the skip contained only an avocado bathroom suite and some Formica-topped kitchen units.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked as she approached, and was gratified to see the other woman jump slightly.
‘Ah,’ she said, a little breathlessly. ‘I’m looking for Mrs Crowther.’
‘Well, I’m not in there,’ Kate said, indicating the skip. She smiled to show she was joking. ‘I’m Kate Crowther.’
‘Excellent,’ the woman said. ‘I was hoping I’d catch you. Annie Thwaites, the council’s conservation officer. Could I take a look at your barns?’
Kate walked her round the side of the house to the outbuildings, slightly regretting that joke about the skip now.
The conservation officer, she knew from Nikolas, would be crucial in deciding whether or not their designs were judged to be in keeping with the rest of Trade Cottage.
If Annie Thwaites decided they weren’t, the planners would almost certainly refuse Kate and Matt’s application.
Annie had a printout of the plans, which she compared to the actual thing, nodding and making notes. Eventually, Kate could bear it no longer. ‘Is there a problem?’
‘We always try to do a site visit when it’s somewhere as sensitive in conservation terms as this is,’ Annie said reassuringly.
Which was not, Kate thought, actually an answer to her question.
‘We’ve received quite a high volume of correspondence about this application, too,’ Annie added. ‘So I thought I’d come and see for myself.’
Kate did what she could. ‘As you can see, we’ve tried to follow all the guidance – leaving the exterior as unchanged as possible, keeping the distinction between old and new, reusing traditional materials and so on.’
Annie nodded. ‘Yes, your architect’s clearly experienced at working with heritage buildings.’
That was a relief. Perhaps Matt was right, Kate thought, and the planning officials wouldn’t be swayed by all the flak and noise from the Pelham Preservation Committee. They must be used to it, after all: rising above Nimbyism was part of their job.
‘Would you like a coffee while you’re looking?’ she asked.
Annie smiled. ‘I’d love one. But actually, I’m done out here. Shall we go inside, and you can talk me through the plans in more detail?’
In the kitchen, while Kate made the coffees, Annie glanced around. ‘This is nice. Was it the same architect?’
‘Thank you,’ Kate said, pleased at the compliment.
It could only help, she felt, that Annie had seen for herself that she and Matt were people of taste who were going to be respectful of Trade Cottage’s past. ‘No, Nikolas is only doing the outbuildings. I designed this myself, with a local kitchen company. It was the dining room before we came.’
Annie took a mouthful of coffee and nodded appreciatively. ‘Have you done much else?’
‘Just upgraded the bathrooms – they didn’t even have showers before.
And we took out a modern fireplace. Other than that, it’s only boring stuff like the cesspit – we need a drainage field under the garden, apparently.
And I’ve been stripping wallpaper and painting.
’ Then, because she realised Annie’s question might have been a loaded one, she added, ‘Obviously, with it being a listed building, we wouldn’t do anything structural.
Or anything that would affect the exterior. ’
‘Yes,’ Annie said. She put her coffee down. ‘The thing is, as the custodian of a listed building, you’re not actually allowed to do anything at all. Even to the interior. Whether it’s structural or not.’
Kate looked at her, puzzled. ‘But surely painting’s all right?’
‘Not unless you’re exactly replacing like for like. I take it this wasn’t?’
‘Well . . .’ Kate said, astounded. ‘No. But—’
‘Did you use specialist heritage paints?’
Chastened, Kate shook her head.
‘There are specific environmental permissions you’ll need for the drainage field,’ Annie went on.
‘But as it’s in the curtilage of a listed building – its grounds, in other words – you’ll need listed building consent as well.
And you’ll need to apply for retrospective consent for everything you’ve done so far. ’
Kate stared at her. ‘But what happens if we don’t get it?’
Annie gave a tight smile. ‘Potentially, you’ll be made to put everything back the way it was.’
‘But it was just tat from forty years ago!’ Kate cried. ‘Formica countertops and avocado loos. And that fireplace was totally out of keeping.’
‘Actually, preserving evidence of a house’s evolution through time is all part of its heritage,’ Annie said mildly. ‘What you call “tat” might be considered a period feature in another twenty years.’
At the thought of being forced to rip out her beautiful new kitchen, Kate was speechless.
There was a loud banging upstairs. ‘Are those builders I can hear?’ Annie asked.
Kate nodded. No point in denying it; it was written on their van, parked next to the skips. ‘They’re putting in a shower.’
‘You need to tell them to stop. Until you have consent, you’re committing an offence under Section 9 of the Planning Act 1990.
’ Annie’s tone was still mild, but there was steel in it too.
Kate half-expected her to announce that she had the right to remain silent, but anything she did say might be given in evidence.
The conservation officer stood up. ‘Hopefully, it’ll all get sorted out,’ she said, more encouragingly.
‘I’ll write a note to the complainants saying we’ve had this conversation, and that you’ll be following the proper process from now on.
You may get a visit from an enforcement officer, to check no more work’s been done, but that’s standard practice. ’
‘Hang on.’ Kate stood up too. ‘So there’s been a complaint? About what we’ve done inside the house?’
Annie nodded. ‘Unlike planning objections, we don’t make listed building complaints public, so I can’t say who it came from.’
‘It’s all right,’ Kate said bitterly. ‘I know exactly who it was.’