Middle House

Middle House Hotel & Restaurant appointed ASP to work on proposals for an extension to the Grade I listed building, to provide additional dining space for the restaurant, which was operating at full capacity, and to provide separate toilets for the restaurant. ASP met with Wealden District Council and English Heritage to establish principles regarding the design approach to the extension.

Jim Richardson Architecture was appointed and an application was submitted in September 2016. A considerable amount of further discussion and negotiation with Wealden and Historic England resulted in the grant of planning permission and listed building consent, and it is anticipated the new restaurant will open in Summer 2017.

Avon Estates Caravan Park
Avon Estates is a residential park home provider with sites across the UK and ASP has acted for this client on a number of previous occasions to seek to maximise the use of sites through increases in occupancy, both in terms of number and type of units, and in some cases increase in the months of occupancy or the nature of that occupancy (holiday or residential).

In this particular case, ASP was instructed on a site in the Stratford on Avon District. The site had a complex planning history over a long period of time, with different permissions covering different parts of the site. Through the use of established case law ASP was successful in obtaining a number of Lawful Development Certificates for the site, confirming that static as opposed to touring caravans could be placed on the site and that a significantly increased number of caravans (266) could be placed on the site.In both cases, these positions were achieved without requiring fresh planning permissions.This type of situation demonstrates the value that can be derived from employing consultants with strong knowledge of the subject being dealt with and an ability to think laterally and produce a tactical approach to problems that can result in maximum results with the least friction.