Willow Farm House

 

Willow Farm is a 40-acre equestrian facility located on the Kent Downs, within the Garden of England.

The site is situated within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), an area classed as being a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSS).

The current owner had purchased the farm along with the small 3-bedroom 1960’s farm house.

Unfortunately, the existing dwelling fell short of the traditional romantic dream of living in a Kentish farm house.

Urban & Rural were commissioned to extend the existing dwelling, enlarging it to a large 5-bedroom house with an attached self-contained annex, while trying to improve the appearance of the 1960’s bungalow.

Planning policy requires that the floor space of a rural dwelling is not increased by more than 60% of the original house. This application would have to challenge that planning policy as the client requested more space for their growing family.

The application made reference to ‘Paragraph 55 NPPF’. This is planning policy that allows schemes judged to be of high architectural merit to override this 60% limit. We secured full planning consent for the large country house with an internal floor space of 563sqm (6,060sqf), a 167% expansion on the original dwelling.

The project is now on site and we hope to show you some finished photographs soon.