Welcome to Akeman Research
House research
We can offer thorough and reliable research for listed building planning applications. At present, our fees are £45 an hour to the nearest half hour.
The work normally includes at least one site visit. Where possible we carry out research at home, using online resources and the Akeman Press Archive, but visits to archive rooms may well be necessary. If a visit is made to an archive room other than the Bath Record Office, we do not charge expenses, such as travel costs, but charge a flat fee of 10 hours for a full day, to cover travel etc, and 5 hours for a half day. This allows the client to know precisely what the cast of the visit will be.
We are now using the Statement of Heritage Significance template as recommended by Historic England for our reports. Although it is more time-consuming than simply producing our own, we feel this template is long overdue, and hope the council will make it compulsory for future planning applications relating to a heritage asset. It should also aid clients as the conservation planning officers will be able to follow references and check facts with greater ease and thus make more informed judgments.
Clients will receive their report in two PDFs – one at email quality for easy communications between the clients and their architects and/or builders, and the other at high quality for the planning application and for printing out if necessary. We normally produce them orientated in landscape format (height 210mm x width 297mm) so that they fit on a screen easily. If it is required orientated the other way, we can do that but will need to be informed fairly early on the process.
If clients just want a house history for their own information, the terms are the same but we can produce the report in whatever format they would like. One client asked for it as a word document so that they could add to it, and we were happy to oblige. We would also write it in a more approachable form than the official language required in reports.
Please use the contact form to let us know your requirements.