Free consultations are available with our RIBA chartered Architects working in Burnley.
In our experience working as architects in Burnley. It pays off to know something about Burnley's industrial past, especially when conducting planning applications and gaining planning permission with Burnley Council.
This has helped us navigate a lot of potential issues that could have arisen coming to the area fresh. Particularly when it comes to the character of the conservation areas in Burnley, working with Burnley council and converting the existing buildings in Burnley. particularly Victorian industrial buildings like the textile mills.
Whether it's a listed building conversion, a house extension or an energy efficient home. The local authority will always be happy if your architect has a deep understanding of the area a design is proposed in. What's more this knowledge can convert into time and money saved through careful design and good planning.
Focus on the architect’s experience with residential projects, including:
One of our main focuses is providing bespoke residential design at an affordable budget through good planning and high quality design decisions.
One of our most recently completed projects is an open plan kitchen, living and dining area with a rear house extension on Lower Manor Lane in Burnley. As with all of our clients, our local Burnley architect services meant that planning permission was secured swiftly, construction on site proceeded without issue and building regulations compliance for achieved quickly.
Working with existing buildings is one of the key services clients obtain value from.
Given the historical character of Burnley, it's no wonder that there are a number of conservation areas and listed buildings. It's important to know what characteristics are protected under these conservation areas if Burnley council is to approve a project in these areas.
Here are a few of the conservation areas in Burnley, note that if you are in one of these areas the planning rules are typically stricter and article 4 directives may be in place, limiting your permitted development rights:
- Burnley Town Centre Conservation Area - around St peter's church and the market hall.
- Padiham Conservation Area - with it's historic mills, terraced housing and high street.
- Hurstwood Conservation Area - with it's old cottages and stone bridges in the countryside.
Burnley council provide an interactive policies map to display the locations on these and other conservation areas. It's a very useful tool in general when considering the feasibility of any project in Burnley. The Burnley Civic Trust also has great resources we often use when researching conservation areas in Burnley.
Some of the key listed buildings in Burnley include the Grade 1 listed St Peter’s Church - located in Burnley town centre - in the Gothic architectural style. Towneley Hall is another Grade 1 listed building which now servs as a museum and gallery, with a range of architectural styles dating back as far as the 14th century. Learn more at Towneley Hall’s official website.
Typically our aim is to provide a design that compliments the original building - whether tat's a listed building or a property in a conservation area - through the use of contrast of coupling. This might involve making a clear distinction between the old and the new, the traditional and the modern. Otherwise it could be something 'in keeping' with the original feel of the building. Historic England have a planning advice page which gets deeper into the subject.
Either way, the key approach we use with heritage buildings is to design deliberately and with good reason. Typically this provides the best result AND planning permission or listed building consent.
The reality of any one project design will always be more nuanced, which is why we do offer free planning advice for those starting a project in Burnley.
Much like our approach to conservation in design, we use our expert knowledge of energy efficient architect design to marry the industrial past of Burnley with modern efficient solutions to reducing energy bills and even generating power on site.
This takes on many forms, whether it's using our certified PassivHaus training, using sustainable materials in the project to lower your embodied carbon or using solar panels and heat pumps to generate energy on site, in fact most renewable energy sources are likely possible on your project as outlined by the Energy Saving Trust. The PassivHaus trust in the UK has a full breakdown on this area and what the expertise means. Our green building solutions aim to provide practical returns while our eco-friendly design aims to give your project a more natural feel.
Sustainable architecture in Burnley can take on many forms, the best way to know what approach works for your project is to get in touch.
Burnley planning permission on a project with Burnley Council will typically follow a chronological step by step process which we use on most of our projects for clients.
Not all steps will be necessary depending on the project, but we'll cover the main steps we'd expect for a more complex project so that you have a well rounded overview of everything you could run into.
1. Feasibility of your project - typically very early stages you should conduct a feasibility study with planning considerations in mind. We typically produce these early sketches, comparing the idea against the local development framework and Burnley council regulations.
2. Establish if you need pre-application advice - again this is normally something we can advise you on. Pre-application advice is an opportunity to reach out to Burnley council to get their opinion on the scheme before you submit a full planning application. Normally for simpler projects it's not necessary.
3. Produce information and submit planning application - By this stage you should be in a position to have planning drawings drafted, consultant reports produced (if needed) and the application sent.
Typically we can handle all of this on behalf of our clients with the exception of very specialist consultant reports such as heritage statements and tree surgeon surveys.
4. Manage the application and communicate with your planning officer - This is a very important stage which often gets neglected. Reaching out to the Burnley council planning officer and providing any additional information can be key to ensuring a potential refusal turns into planning permission approval.
Usually an email and telephone number will be provided for the case officer working on your planning application in Burnley. But sometimes we've found that won't be the case, usually in those cases we might need to do some detective work through the main channels. Typically we'll start with Burnley council planning department whose email and phone number you can find below:
Telephone: 01282 425011
Email: planning@burnley.gov.uk and buildingcontrol@burnley.gov.uk
This was the case for the house extension project on Lower Manor Lane, Burnley. Following some discussions about the materials and sizing, we were able to secure planning permission as shown on Burnley Council's planning website.
Here's one of the floor plan architect drawings we produced for the planning permission of the Burnley house extension.
If it's not apparent yet on the read so far, we make informing our clients a top priority. An informed client is the best client in our opinion and it helps us do the best work we can for you.
It should also give you confidence when embarking on this journey, construction projects in Burnley will typically involve a lot of money, time and a lot of decisions. Having good advice makes all the difference when experiencing this.
Among the more hard skills we possess, our technical construction knowledge and energy efficiency expertise does set us apart from other architects.
The way we work with existing buildings isn't something we see among our peers as well, we've honed our approach to existing buildings over the last 6 years which allows us to get the very best from even the lowest of construction budgets.
There's likely other unique characteristics we bring to the table for our clients, either way you can see for yourself whether we're a good fit with a free consultation where you can get all the information you need on your project whenever you're ready.
The project on Lower manor lane started with us providing no strings attached free advice. The client felt confident enough after the call to take the first step.
Having worked in the construction industry and within architecture for the last 15 years, I've seen everything from the very best to the very questionable.
My focus over the last 6 years has been on bringing the very best in energy efficient architecture and high design to the small scale.
Free consultations are available with our RIBA chartered Architects working in Burnley.
