Block Management in Cheddar
Block, estate and leasehold management for Cheddar. Compliance is tracked against Somerset Council.
Managing a Block in Cheddar at a Glance
- Local authority
- Somerset Council
- Authority type
- Unitary
- Building control
- Somerset Building Control, the council's own service covering the four former district areas
- County
- Somerset
- Fire and rescue service
- Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service
- Water and sewerage
- Wessex Water
- Setting
- Inland
Who You Deal with in Cheddar
A block in Cheddar deals with Somerset Council, a unitary authority, so building control, planning and housing enforcement sit with one body. Fire safety in the common parts is enforced by Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service. Communal water and sewerage is Wessex Water.
The Residential Stock in Cheddar
The village itself held 2,553 households at the 2021 Census with 352 in flats, 13.8 per cent, made up of 259 in purpose-built blocks, 41 in a converted or shared house, 33 in another converted building and 19 over commercial premises. That gives Cheddar the highest share of flats in other converted buildings of the Somerset towns covered here at 9.4 per cent, which means former schools, chapels and warehouses rather than former houses. The published Cheddar ward figure of 530 flats among 4,061 households should not be quoted as a village figure: only about 63 per cent of the ward's households are actually in Cheddar, the largest ward distortion in this group.
Flood Risk in Cheddar
Fluvial on the Cheddar Yeo, with genuine groundwater and reservoir dimensions that most villages do not have. Only 6.0 per cent of the built-up area is in Flood Zone 3 and 12.1 per cent in Flood Zone 2. There is no Cheddar-specific flood warning area anywhere in the Environment Agency's records; the only area naming the village is the North Somerset rivers alert, which covers 9.7 per cent of it. The strategic flood risk assessment describes the Yeo rising north east of the village, running down the gorge and through it, with properties either side of the channel in Flood Zone 3a but a relatively narrow floodplain against the wider settlement, most of which is Flood Zone 1. Groundwater is a named local mechanism, with springs emerging at the foot of the permeable slopes. The reservoir dimension is the one to plan around: Cheddar Reservoir is a large raised reservoir under the Reservoirs Act 1975, 14 metres at its maximum height and holding 6,137,000 cubic metres, and the assessment warns that its inundation area spreads slightly wider than the Environment Agency flood map for planning, so a site can be outside the flood zones and still inside the inundation outline. The village's own historic benchmark is the July 1968 storm, when the gorge became a torrent of water, mud and rock, left a nine metre hole in the road and put 35 people out of their homes.
For a block that reaches leaseholders through the insurance premium and excess, and through the management pack when someone sells.
Conservation Areas and Listed Buildings in Cheddar
One conservation area, designated 17 April 1991, and that is the only designation among the Somerset towns covered here for which the council publishes a date precise to the day rather than a year. The council states in the national dataset that there is no appraisal document, although the district-wide Sedgemoor audit of November 1993 devotes three pages to it and identifies three components: the village core focused on the market cross and parish church, part of Lower North Street where traditional local limestone construction is particularly evident, and the ancient Kings of Wessex palace site. No modern appraisal has been produced since. The area covers 0.145 square kilometres, 5.8 per cent of the built-up village.
The made neighbourhood plan states that there are 34 listed buildings within Cheddar, a 2018 figure now two short of Historic England's current data, which gives 35 in the built-up area and 36 in the parish, of which 18 are inside the conservation area. One is Grade I, the Church of St Andrew, and two are Grade II*, the Market Cross and Church Farm House, all three listed on 9 February 1961. The more unusual constraint is scheduling: five scheduled monuments reach into the built-up village, including Gough's Cave, Gough's Old Cave, Saye's Hole, the Roman settlement with the Anglo-Saxon and Norman royal palace and St Columbanus' Chapel, and the Market Cross, which is simultaneously scheduled and listed at Grade II*.
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 Cheddar
A single figure genuinely misleads here, because the village is split. The market cross returns class 2, 1 to 3 per cent of homes at or above the action level, but of the ten one-kilometre squares over the built-up area six are class 5 at 10 to 30 per cent and one is class 4 at 5 to 10 per cent. The elevated squares are the northern and eastern gorge-facing limestone side; the lower ones are the southern end toward the moors. Which end of the village a block sits in moves the band by three steps, so the address matters more than the village name.
Nobody's flat includes the plant room or the undercroft, which is why those get overlooked. A three-month test is cheap and the result sits with the compliance record.
Planning Policy That Affects Flats in Cheddar
Decided under the Sedgemoor Local Plan 2011 to 2032, adopted 20 February 2019. The Cheddar Neighbourhood Plan 2011 to 2027 was made in October 2018, and Cheddar's was the earliest neighbourhood area designated anywhere in Somerset. There is no Article 4 direction. The designation that most shapes development here is landscape rather than heritage: 14.6 per cent of the built-up area, including part of the conservation area, lies inside the Mendip Hills National Landscape, and 57.2 per cent of the parish does. Four sites of special scientific interest and two special areas of conservation also touch the built-up village, so ecology surveys arrive earlier in a project here than they would in a comparable town on the levels.
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 Cheddar
Changing agent is the company's decision, taken the way its articles require. The only part with a deadline is the notice the outgoing agent is contractually owed. On Cheddar 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.
Service charge or accounts query? Email accounts@plymouthblockmanagement.com and quote your development and flat number, or .
Cheddar Questions
Which Council Does a Block in Cheddar Deal With?
Somerset Building Control, the council's own service covering the four former district areas. One body, so building control, planning and licensing sit together.
Who Enforces Fire Safety in the Common Parts in Cheddar?
Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service, as the enforcing authority for the Fire Safety Order.
Who Supplies Water to a Development in Cheddar?
Wessex 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 Cheddar?
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
Talk to Us About Your Building in Cheddar.
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