After a flurry of activity the plans have been finalised and submitted for planning approval. It was actually more of a panicky rush because we really wanted to do this before we went on holiday and so at 16:45 on the day before our holiday I was at the local town hall paying the fee ready for our architect to assemble all the required documents to submit online. It's just as well we did because the decision date is 3rd September but the planning department have been deluged with planning requests and asked for a 3 week delay. You can't really object because you don't want to antagonise your case officer! We really thought that as long as the building changes were accepted the rest would be a formality since it already has planning approval (renewed twice), but we have already have some objections from local residents about the access lane and the coal board have said that we need a mining survey. Talk about nerve racking. Jon (our architect) has assured us that we shouldn't panic and he will investigate the coal board request and talk to the structural engineer. 

On site whilst there is no progress with the buildings, a lot of ground clearing has been done. The garden is looking quite open now and there is plenty of room for the builders to manoeveur. A couple of bonfire days has seen off most of the debris from the canopy demolition and the jungly garden. 

Also, the connection to the Severn Trent drains has been completed at the bottom end of the lane. This is now ready for the water runoff from the lane to be connected in and so hopefully prevent flooding at the bottom, which is a regular problem for the residents at the moment after a heavy downpour. It will also be the connection for our sewers as we really wanted to avoid having to build a water treatment plant.