Block Management in Winchcombe
Block, estate and leasehold management for Winchcombe. Compliance is tracked against Tewkesbury Borough Council and the county above it.
Managing a Block in Winchcombe at a Glance
- Local authority
- Tewkesbury Borough Council
- Authority type
- District, under the county council
- Building control
- Cheltenham and Tewkesbury Building Control, shared with Cheltenham Borough Council
- County
- Gloucestershire
- Fire and rescue service
- Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service
- Water and sewerage
- Severn Trent Water
- Setting
- Inland
Who You Deal with in Winchcombe
A block in Winchcombe deals with Tewkesbury Borough 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 Severn Trent Water.
The Residential Stock in Winchcombe
The published Winchcombe ward figure is 235 flats among 3,062 households, 7.7 per cent, and it should not be used for the town without correction because this is the worst ward fit of the Gloucestershire towns covered here. Only 2,034 of the ward's households, 66.4 per cent, are inside the built-up area; the ward is roughly half as large again as the town and takes in a substantial rural hinterland. Narrowing to the town gives 2,034 households and 211 flats, 10.4 per cent, made up of 155 in purpose-built blocks, 22 in a converted or shared house, 16 in another converted building and 18 over commercial premises. The ward figure understates the town's flat share by about a third.
Flood Risk in Winchcombe
Fluvial on the River Isbourne. The only Environment Agency designation containing the town is the alert for the rivers of south Worcestershire, which lists the Isbourne alongside the Badsey, Honeybourne, Bretforton and Littleton Brooks and covers 7.64 per cent of the built-up area. No flood warning area reaches Winchcombe, and there is a specific trap here worth naming: two Environment Agency warning areas are named for the River Isbourne, but both are downstream at Sedgeberrow and Hinton on the Green and neither touches this town. Attaching either to Winchcombe would be wrong. The flood map puts 5.94 per cent of the town in Flood Zone 2 and 2.46 per cent in Flood Zone 3, fluvial only, and no defence scheme is published.
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 Winchcombe
One conservation area, designated 19 March 1971, and unlike the Stroud towns it does have a published conservation area appraisal, though the council gives no adoption date for it and the document itself is a scan without a text layer. The designation is large relative to the settlement, covering 24.96 per cent of the built-up area, the biggest share of the Gloucestershire towns covered here, so a quarter of Winchcombe sits inside it.
177 entries on the National Heritage List fall inside the built-up area, one Grade I, three Grade II* and 173 Grade II. No council published total exists, so the figure is computed from Historic England's open data against the town's statistical boundary.
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 Winchcombe
Three different classes across one small town, which makes a single figure genuinely misleading here. Of the seven one-kilometre squares over the built-up area, four are class 2 covering about 86 per cent of the area, at 1 to 3 per cent of homes at or above the action level; two are class 4 at 5 to 10 per cent; and one is in the lowest band, where the published advice is that radon measurement is not advised. So the same town contains ground where the national advice is to measure and ground where it is not.
That is national advice about the ground, not about the building. The same map excludes basements, cellars and underground spaces at every band, so an enclosed plant room, undercroft or lower-ground flat is still worth a look even here, and whatever is found belongs with the compliance record.
Licensing and Permitted Development in Winchcombe
An Article 4 direction dating from 8 October 1987 covers about 16 per cent of the built-up area. The rights it removes are recorded in the national register and decode to four classes: the enlargement, improvement or other alteration of a dwellinghouse; any other alteration to a roof; the erection of a porch outside an external door; and the painting of the exterior of any building or work. That last one is the unusual and practically significant one for a block, because repainting an elevation is the kind of cyclical work that would otherwise never involve an application. The council's published document is a scanned map with no street schedule, so the boundary has to be established with the council rather than looked up.
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 Winchcombe
Two adopted plans apply here rather than one. The Joint Core Strategy for Gloucester, Cheltenham and Tewkesbury was adopted in December 2017 and is under review, and the Tewkesbury Borough Plan 2011 to 2031 was adopted on 8 June 2022 at a special meeting of the council. A successor strategic and local plan is emerging but not adopted. The Winchcombe and Sudeley Neighbourhood Development Plan was made on 24 January 2017 after a referendum carried by 87.02 per cent of those voting on a turnout of 22.49 per cent; the raw vote counts are not published on the council's page. About 71 per cent of the built-up area lies inside the Cotswolds National Landscape, so most but not all of the town is within it. One authority point worth stating plainly, because it is the easiest mistake to make about this town: Winchcombe is in Tewkesbury Borough, not Cotswold District, despite sitting in the Cotswolds.
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 Winchcombe
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 Winchcombe 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 .
Winchcombe Questions
Which Council Does a Block in Winchcombe Deal With?
Cheltenham and Tewkesbury Building Control, shared with Cheltenham Borough Council. A district council, with the county council above it for county functions.
Who Enforces Fire Safety in the Common Parts in Winchcombe?
Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service, as the enforcing authority for the Fire Safety Order.
Who Supplies Water to a Development in Winchcombe?
Severn Trent 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 Winchcombe?
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 Winchcombe.
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