Block Management in Fowey
Block, estate and leasehold management for Fowey. Compliance is tracked against Cornwall Council. Marine-exposed stock is surveyed on a shorter interval and funded from what the surveys find.
Managing a Block in Fowey at a Glance
- Local authority
- Cornwall Council
- Authority type
- Unitary
- Building control
- Cornwall Council Building Control
- County
- Cornwall
- Fire and rescue service
- Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service
- Water and sewerage
- South West Water
- Setting
- Coastal
Who You Deal with in Fowey
A block in Fowey deals with Cornwall Council, a unitary authority, so building control, planning and housing enforcement sit with one body. Fire safety in the common parts is enforced by Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service. Communal water and sewerage is South West Water.
The Residential Stock in Fowey
At the 2021 Census the division covering the town held 2,603 households with 85 flats in purpose-built blocks and 64 in a converted or shared house, plus 22 in other converted buildings and 26 over commercial premises. Conversions running at three quarters of the purpose-built count is the highest such ratio in this batch, and the division is substantially larger than the town itself. Aggregating the census output areas inside the built-up area gives 963 households, of which 69 are in purpose-built blocks, 7.2 per cent, 36 in a converted or shared house, 14 in another converted building and 16 over commercial premises, with no caravans at all. The published electoral division, Fowey, Tywardreath and Par, is 2.7 times the town and is not named for Fowey alone; quoting it would overstate detached housing by nearly eight percentage points and understate flats by more than half.
Coastal Exposure in Fowey
A tidal harbour at an open-coast mouth. The shoreline management plan holds the line at Fowey in all three epochs, with undefended cliffs and undefended intertidal areas immediately adjoining, and the town sits in the policy development zone running from Pencarrow Head to Gribbin Head. The conservation area appraisal also places it on the Heritage Coast. The shoreline management plan gives Fowey a policy unit named for the town, running 3.62 kilometres, held in all three epochs to 2105. On either side of it the undefended cliffs and intertidal units are no active intervention throughout, and Polruan across the harbour has its own hold the line unit. So the defended frontage here is the town and the harbour, and the coast beyond it is not.
Standards classify a high-salinity coastal atmosphere as C5-M, very high marine, in which unprotected steel loses more than 80 micrometres of thickness in its first year against as little as 1.3 inland. Balustrades, railings, fixings and walkway structures are what that costs a Fowey block, so we survey them on a shorter interval and fund the reserve fund from what the surveys find.
Flood Risk in Fowey
Tidal and coastal, and the council's own section 19 flood investigations record what that means in practice. In December 2012 the Town Quay was overtopped and, as the tide rose, drains began to surcharge on Town Quay, Webb Street and Fore Street, flooding four properties. In February 2014 defences were overtopped along South Street, Webb Street and Fore Street and at Caffamill car park, and 26 properties flooded. Flood zone 3 covers 4.9 per cent of the built-up area. Fowey is not a priority community in the council's strategy and no defence scheme is published. Three Environment Agency areas contain part of the town and the naming is a trap worth avoiding. The River Fowey alert covers 2.01 per cent of the built-up area but its published description names Lostwithiel, the Glynn Valley, Trago Mills and St Neot, and does not name Fowey at all. The two south Cornwall coast areas from Gribbin Head to Rame Head, one an alert and one a warning, each cover about 1.9 per cent and do name Fowey. No Environment Agency area names a single street in this town, checked against all 4,208 of them.
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 Fowey
One area. The council's dataset gives a designation date of 31 May 1969 amended on 24 April 2010, while its own appraisal says the area was first designated in 1967 and extended in 1981. Both are council sources and they disagree; the appraisal itself is dated March 2010 with boundary changes in effect from 24 April 2010. One conservation area, designated on 31 May 1969, and its shape is unusual: at 72.7 hectares it is nearly three quarters the size of the entire built-up area, but only about 38 per cent of it lies inside the town, the rest being the Place and Readymoney headland. Of the town itself 27.4 per cent sits inside the designation, the highest proportion of the Cornish towns covered in this pass. The appraisal registered against it cannot be read: the address Cornwall Council published returns an error, as do the sibling files from the same March 2010 batch, while other documents in the same directory resolve normally. That is a county-wide problem rather than a local one, 27 of Cornwall's 58 registered appraisal links being dead.
The council publishes its own figure for the conservation area: 103 listed building designations, of which two are grade I, Place House and St Fimbarrus church, and seven are grade II star, including the walls at Place House, St Catherine's Castle, the fifteenth century Blockhouse and The Ship Inn. There are also two scheduled monuments and four tree preservation orders inside the area. 105 entries on the National Heritage List sit inside the conservation area and 103 inside the built-up area, two Grade I in both cases: Place, and the Church of St Fimbarrus. The difference between those two counts matters and is worth stating rather than glossing: two Grade II* entries, St Catherine's Castle and the castle remains at the harbour mouth, fall outside the statistical built-up area while remaining inside the conservation area, so a built-up-area count alone under-reports the town's Grade II* stock by two of seven. The others include 27 and 29 Fore Street, the walls at Place, Frenchman's Creek, the museum and the Ship Inn.
Consent has to precede the Section 20 specification, not follow it, or leaseholders are consulted on work that cannot lawfully be done as described.
Radon in Fowey
Class 6 of 6 in four of the five kilometre squares over the town, where the maximum radon potential is greater than 30 per cent of homes above the action level, with the fifth at class 5. Fowey is the only one of the Cornish towns covered in this pass split roughly two to one between the top two bands. Of the land actually covered by the mapping, 68 per cent is class 6, where maximum radon potential is greater than 30 per cent of homes at or above the action level, and 32 per cent is class 5 at 10 to 30 per cent. About a third of the built-up area has no radon polygon at all, being estuary. The published advice in both bands is that radon measurement is advised.
In a block the part worth attention is the enclosed communal space at or below ground level: plant rooms, undercrofts, basements and bin stores. Measuring is inexpensive, takes three months, and the result belongs with the compliance record.
Planning Policy That Affects Flats in Fowey
Decided under the Cornwall Local Plan, with the Fowey Neighbourhood Development Plan made on 11 March 2020. The referendum result is not published, the plan pre-dating the council's published results. There is no Article 4 direction; the 2010 appraisal recommends the council consider one, which means none was in place. The Fowey Neighbourhood Development Plan was made on 11 March 2020. Referendum figures are not published. Lanteglos-by-Fowey across the harbour has its own made plan, from January 2022, so the two sides of the water are covered by different documents.
Policy in an adopted plan is not guidance. It is what the application is decided against, and a consent granted under the lease does not substitute for it or vice versa.
Changing Managing Agent in Fowey
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 Fowey 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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Fowey Questions
Which Council Does a Block in Fowey Deal With?
Cornwall Council Building Control. One body, so building control, planning and licensing sit together.
Who Enforces Fire Safety in the Common Parts in Fowey?
Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service, as the enforcing authority for the Fire Safety Order.
Who Supplies Water to a Development in Fowey?
South West 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 Fowey?
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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