Structural alteration covers any change to the way a building carries its load: new openings, removed walls, altered roofs, new steel. We coordinate it. We appoint the structural engineer, build to their calculations, make the building control application and manage the inspections. We do not produce calculations, and we are not surveyors, party wall surveyors or architects. This page sets out the consent route in Hitchin.
The planning authority for Hitchin sits in Letchworth Garden City
The local planning authority for Hitchin is North Hertfordshire District Council, which trades as North Herts Council. It works from Council Offices, Gernon Road, Letchworth Garden City SG6 3JF, so a Hitchin application is decided outside the town. There is no neighbourhood plan for Hitchin. The adopted Local Plan lists the district's neighbourhood plan areas, and Hitchin is not among them.
Those areas are Ashwell, Baldock Bygrave and Clothall, Barkway and Nuthampstead, Ickleford, Knebworth, Pirton, Preston, Wallington and Wymondley. That simplifies one thing for you. A Hitchin scheme is judged against the district plan and the designations covering the site, without a further layer of neighbourhood policy to answer. We identify which of those apply to your address before any drawing is produced.
Four conservation areas cover parts of Hitchin, and one carries an Article 4 direction
Hitchin has four conservation areas, not one. They are Hitchin, Butts Close Hitchin, Hitchin Hill Path, and Hitchin Railway and Ransoms Recreation Ground. All four sets of documents were adopted by the council on 26 July 2011. North Hertfordshire has 44 conservation areas in total across the district.
North Hertfordshire has only two Article 4 directions in the whole district, and one of them covers the Hitchin Conservation Area. It was made on 9 October 2012. Inside that area the direction removes permitted development rights for alterations to the roof of a dwellinghouse. Which of the four areas your property falls in therefore decides whether the direction reaches your scheme, and that is the first thing we establish.
The ground was shaped by a glacial valley and a river that runs under the town
The council's character statement records that the Hitchin valley, on the north slope of the Chiltern Hills, was probably created by glaciation and then occupied by the River Hiz. The Hiz runs through the town centre and is culverted in places. The Dell, the wooded hollow on the north side of Windmill Hill, was created through sand and gravel extraction.
Around Purwell and Ninesprings the British Geological Survey maps Holywell Nodular Chalk Formation and New Pit Chalk Formation, undifferentiated, as the bedrock. At Ninesprings Way no superficial deposit is mapped, so chalk sits at or close to the surface. At Purwell Lane, Lowestoft Formation diamicton is mapped over the chalk. A culvert, worked ground and a shallow chalk surface are three separate problems, and none of them is answered from a desk.
A Hitchin house can be locally listed without needing listed building consent
North Herts Council states that there are no additional controls over works to assets included on a local register. A locally listed Hitchin house therefore does not need listed building consent. Where a building is on the Hitchin register and planning permission is required, the council states it will take the local interest of that building into consideration when deciding the application.
The Hitchin Register of Buildings of Local Interest includes entries on residential streets. They include Benslow Lane, Benslow Rise, Highbury Road, Old Park Road, Radcliffe Road, Standhill Road, Verulam Road, Whinbush Road, Whitehill Road, Willian Road and Wymondley Road. If your address appears, no separate heritage consent is triggered, but the entry weighs in any planning application. We check the register before the scheme is fixed.
- Floor structure, joist and beam replacement
- Trial holes to confirm foundation depth and ground conditions
- Bressummer and bay window support to period frontages
- Crack repair, helical bar stitching and masonry restraint
- Chimney breast removal and support to the stack above
Trusted Structural Alterations in Hitchin
Structural alteration in Hitchin has two separate consent routes, and they run to different clocks. Planning goes to North Herts Council in Letchworth Garden City, and which of the town's four conservation areas covers the address changes the answer. Building control goes to Hertfordshire Building Control. We work out which of the two you need before design starts, appoint the structural engineer, build to the calculations issued and manage both sets of paperwork. You get one point of contact across the lot. GS Renovation Ltd is fully insured, registered in England, company number 14611254, and rated 4.9 from 31 reviews on MyBuilder.
- Structural engineer instructed and coordinated on your behalf
- Free, no-obligation quotations
- A written scope and programme agreed before work starts
- Building control inspected at foundation, steel and completion
- Trial holes dug to confirm what is under the building
- Clean, tidy and reliable tradespeople