Block Management in Bourton-on-the-Water
Block, estate and leasehold management for Bourton-on-the-Water. Compliance is tracked against Cotswold District Council and the county above it.
Managing a Block in Bourton-on-the-Water at a Glance
- Local authority
- Cotswold District Council
- Authority type
- District, under the county council
- Building control
- Cotswold District Council Building Control
- County
- Gloucestershire
- Fire and rescue service
- Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service
- Water and sewerage
- Thames Water
- Setting
- Inland
Who You Deal with in Bourton-on-the-Water
A block in Bourton-on-the-Water deals with Cotswold District Council for building control and planning, with the county council above it. Fire safety in the common parts is enforced by Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service. Communal water and sewerage is Thames Water.
The Residential Stock in Bourton-on-the-Water
The two wards covering Bourton are together about two and a third times the size of the town, so neither should be quoted as a town figure. Narrowing to the census output areas that actually sit inside the built-up area gives 1,162 households, of which 139 are in purpose-built blocks, 12.0 per cent, 11 in a converted or shared house, seven in another converted building and 11 over commercial premises. The correction matters in both directions: the Bourton Vale ward sweeps in countryside toward the Rissingtons and reports 23 caravans and 49.3 per cent detached housing, none of which describes the village, while the town itself is 32.4 per cent terraced. So the ward data makes Bourton look like a detached-house area when the settlement is largely terraced.
Flood Risk in Bourton-on-the-Water
Bourton-on-the-Water has the heaviest flood coverage of the Cotswold towns covered here, and it comes from two rivers rather than one. Four Environment Agency areas contain part of the built-up area. On the Windrush, the warning area running from the A436 down to the Little Rissington pits covers 16.80 per cent of the town, and the wider Windrush alert from Bourton to Newbridge covers 17.43 per cent. On the Dikler, the warning area between Stow-on-the-Wold and Bourton covers 4.11 per cent and its alert 3.99 per cent. Unusually, every candidate area returned within eight kilometres actually reaches the town, so there is nothing to discard here as proximity. The Environment Agency names the A436 but no streets, describing its extents by river, settlement and landmark instead, so the warning is area-based rather than address-based. Set against Stow-on-the-Wold four miles north, which no flood area touches at all, this is about as sharp a contrast as two towns in one district can offer.
The cost lands on the insurance schedule and on the reserve fund long before any water does.
Conservation Areas and Listed Buildings in Bourton-on-the-Water
One conservation area, designated on 7 July 1971, with a later record date of January 2000 in the national register. Bourton is the only one of the Cotswold towns covered here with a published conservation area statement rather than just a boundary map, and the council also publishes a character map for it. No formal adoption date is given for that statement, so it should be cited as published rather than as adopted. The designation covers 38.48 hectares but only about half of it lies inside the built-up area, amounting to 12.6 per cent of the town. One name to be careful with: Bourton on the Hill is a separate conservation area covering a different village thirteen kilometres north, designated in July 1972.
110 entries on the National Heritage List fall inside the built-up area, and not one of them is Grade I. Seven are Grade II* and the remaining 103 Grade II, with 101 of the total sitting inside the conservation area. The Grade II* entries are the Church of St Lawrence together with its gates and gatepiers, Harrington House and its screen walls and gate piers, Sherborne Terrace, Baines House and the John Jordan bale tomb south of the church. The council publishes no count for any settlement, so these figures are computed from Historic England's open data.
The sequencing is what catches boards out: consent first, then the Section 20 specification. Specify and consult before consent is in hand and the consultation has to be run again.
Radon in Bourton-on-the-Water
Split between two bands, and Bourton is the only one of the Cotswold towns covered here of which that is true. Of the eight one-kilometre squares over the built-up area, three quarters of the town by area is class 4, at 5 to 10 per cent of homes at or above the action level, and the remaining quarter is class 5, at 10 to 30 per cent. The published advice in both bands is that radon measurement is advised. So the town sits between Moreton-in-Marsh, which is uniformly in the 1 to 3 per cent band, and Stow-on-the-Wold, which is almost entirely in the 10 to 30 per cent band.
It is a homeowner question in a house and a communal one in a block. Test the enclosed shared spaces at or below ground level and keep the result with the compliance record.
Licensing and Permitted Development in Bourton-on-the-Water
Bourton has much the strongest Article 4 direction of the Cotswold towns covered here, made on 19 December 2000 under article 4(2). It withdraws an unusually broad set of permitted development rights: extensions, roof alterations and dormers, exterior cladding and painting, porches, outbuildings, chimneys and flues, satellite dishes, gates, walls and fences, and demolition. In practice that leaves very little external work that can be done without an application. Its shape is as important as its scope: rather than blanket an area it covers 34 separate polygons totalling just 0.36 hectares, which are individual property curtilages running as a north to south band through the village core along the High Street and Sherborne Street. All 34 sit inside both the built-up area and the conservation area. So the question here is not whether a building is in the conservation area but whether it is one of the 34, and the council does not publish the addresses; its own document could not be read by automated request, so the list has to be obtained from the council directly.
Two permissions get confused here. The council's requirements are public law and apply whatever the lease says; consent under the lease is private law and applies whatever the council says. A leaseholder letting a flat usually needs both.
Planning Policy That Affects Flats in Bourton-on-the-Water
Decided under the Cotswold District Local Plan 2011 to 2031, adopted 3 August 2018. There is no neighbourhood plan and none in preparation: Bourton appears on neither the council's made list nor its list of plans in development. The whole of the built-up area lies inside the Cotswolds National Landscape.
This is development plan policy, so it binds the council when it decides an application and it binds a leaseholder's alteration just as it binds a developer's scheme. It sits alongside, not instead of, the consent the lease requires.
Changing Managing Agent in Bourton-on-the-Water
Two questions stall most boards: who has authority to decide, and what happens to the money. The articles answer the first, the management agreement's notice clause the second. On Bourton-on-the-Water heritage stock the consents history is what most often turns out to be incomplete, and its absence resurfaces later as a planning problem.
See the handover sequence in full, and our fees, which are a fixed annual amount with no commission on contractor work.
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Bourton-on-the-Water Questions
Which Council Does a Block in Bourton-on-the-Water Deal With?
Cotswold District Council Building Control. A district council, with the county council above it for county functions.
Who Enforces Fire Safety in the Common Parts in Bourton-on-the-Water?
Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service, as the enforcing authority for the Fire Safety Order.
Who Supplies Water to a Development in Bourton-on-the-Water?
Thames Water. A communal supply is the building's contract, not a leaseholder's, so report a loss to common parts through us.
Do We Need Consent for External Works in Bourton-on-the-Water?
On a listed building or in a conservation area, yes, for much that would be permitted elsewhere. Get it before the Section 20 specification, not after.
Nearby Areas
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