Firstly, let us remind ourselves exactly what the new conservatory planning permission regulations are:

From 1 October 2008 adding a conservatory to your home will be considered to be permitted development, not needing an application for planning permission, subject to the following limits and conditions:

1. More than half the area of land around the “original house”* would be covered by additions or other buildings.
2. No extension forward of the principal elevation or side elevation fronting a highway.
3. No extension to be higher than the highest part of the roof.
4. Maximum depth of a single-storey rear extension of three metres for an attached house and four metres for a detached house.
5. Maximum height of a single-storey rear extension of four metres.
6. Maximum depth of a rear extension of more than one storey of three metres including ground floor.
7. Maximum eaves height of an extension within two metres of the boundary of three metres.
8. Maximum eaves and ridge height of extension no higher than existing house.
9. Side extensions to be single storey with maximum height of four metres and width no more than half that of the original house.
10. Roof pitch of extensions higher than one storey to match existing house.
11. No verandas, balconies or raised platforms.
12. On designated land* no permitted development for rear extensions of more than one storey; no cladding of the exterior; no side extensions.

Where work is proposed to a listed building, listed building consent may be required. * The term “original house” means the house as it was first built or as it stood on 1 July 1948 (if it was built before that date). Although you may not have built an extension to the house, a previous owner may have done so.

* Designated land includes national parks and the Broads, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, conservation areas and World Heritage Sites.

OK – so what effect are these new regulations having on the conservatory industry?

Personally, I think they are having very little effect, I’ve not noticed any difference anyway.

My company still has a long list of pending orders where customers are awaiting planning permission approval and the list isn’t getting any shorter – it’s actually constantly getting added to.

This is probably due to the number of conservatories that still do not fall within the new planning permission exemption rules, and in particular, consumers are wanting their conservatories to exceed the permitted projection limits to be of any good use as additional living spaces.

I have heard reports from a reliable source (a major supplier) that they are suffering from a lower average order value due to consumers intentionally keeping their conservatories within the limits of the maximum permitted projection to avoid having to apply for planning permission, and therefore ordering smaller conservatories.

Personally, I have not experienced this and our average order value continues to increase with the growing demand for glass roofs and larger conservatories.

I would be interested to hear from anyone else with their comments and experiences regarding this issue.

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With the power and popularity of the internet nowadays, a company’s online reputation can be the make or break of that company – it really is becoming that important.

More and more consumers are searching for that all important ‘confidence factor’ before committing to deal with any type of company, and in particular before paying deposits.

So what is happening out there? Well, say Mr Smith is considering buying a conservatory from me – so he goes to google and searches for ‘conservatoryland reviews’ and gets the following results.

OK, the top natural search result is the ‘big one’ - Review Centre. So Mr Smith clicks on that one and is immediately presented with 22 different independent reviews from consumers that we have dealt with in the past.

Well as you can see, we currently have 18 out of 22 customers on the Review Centre site that would recommend us – not bad, but not great either, so what does this mean and what affect will it have on Mr Smith’s view of our company?

Unfortunately, many consumers do not accept that all companies receive complaints and have dissatisfied customers, but even worse, many will fail to understand just what they are seeing on consumer review sites such as this one and how accurate the overall picture of a company that is being created here actually is.

As we all know, we don’t often hear from satisfied customers but we always hear from the dissatisfied ones. Well it’s the same with review sites, satisfied customers won’t ‘break their necks’ trying to get to the review sites fast enough to leave you a good testimonial – BUT THE DISSATISFIED ONES CERTAINLY WILL!

For example, if you have 100 satisfied customers and 2 dissatisfied customers, what feedback from those customers would you expect? I would guess that you would definitely hear from both dissatisfied customers but you would be lucky to hear from one of the 100 satisfied ones.

So what can we do about it? The first step of course is to endeavour to resolve 100% of customer grievances to prevent them running off to the review sites and slagging your company off – not always achievable with every customer though, so you’ve got to accept that you will get some negative reviews on the web, you’ve just got to keep them to a minimum.

The second step is to encourage your satisfied customers to leave you nice, honest reviews on these sites, but that’s not easy either – you’re asking your customers to sit down, spend their precious time and type a written testimonial about their experiences with your company and not everyone is computer/internet savvy.

I recognise the importance of a company’s online reputation and the threats that can be presented here if ignored and this will undoubtedly get bigger as time goes by.

Therefore I spend a lot of my personal time working on this issue, placing a very high priority on customer satisfaction to help prevent negative publicity and encouraging satisfied customers to publish positive comments about our company on the web.

Even after all this effort, Mr Smith as referred to above, will think that we have around 1 in 5 dissatisfied customers when in fact it is around 1 in 94! So are these review sites really being fair? and is a potential customer left with an accurate view of your company after reading comments about you on the review sites?

Please vote below:

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I was quite alarmed to receive a letter from Pilkington yesterday, outlining their proposed substantial price increases with effect from 8th June 2009.

The following is an article relating to this, from thisismoney.

Leading glass-maker Pilkington is imposing huge price rises on its customers – just as house-builders are struggling to survive.

The company, founded in 1826 and part of Japan’s NSG since 2006, has told clients the price of the glass commonly used in new homes is to rise by 50pc. Last October, Pilkington closed one of the lines producing standard glass at its St Helens site on Merseyside.

Pilkington, which supplies more than a third of the glass used in UK buildings, says it is only trying to make up for earlier price reductions.

In a letter to customers, it said: ‘Glass manufacture and supply has become uneconomic and the situation cannot be sustained.’

A spokesman said: ‘We are losing money, this is a commercial decision.’

Download Pilkington’s price increase letter here.

Read more information and opinions on this subject at Renegade Conservatory Guy

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