[Swansea Hackspace] What next

[Justin Mitchell]

On Sun, 2013-03-24 at 00:33 +0000, Neil Jones wrote:

> You may need planning permission for the change of use
> http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/permission/commonprojects/changeofuse/


>From that list i would guess it would count as class B1 use.

So that should mean any existing office or industrial space is covered,
but could be more limiting for existing shop type spaces.

Does anyone know who in the council we might ask about this, or have
experience of it from another hackspace ?


> > On Sat, 2013-03-23 at 20:34 +0000, Tom Lloyd wrote:
> > I suspect that any potential retail space would charge a premium.
> > We want somewhere just out of town, nearby but off the beaten track
> > - perhaps a former garage or small factory or studio?
> > Cwmdu/Cwmbwrla might be a good area to start looking.

Last time i looked there didnt seem to be much/any workshop type spaces
listed in these areas, i guess they are in some demand already. But
people should keep an eye out so we can get a feel for how expensive
such places might be.

also afaics the retail spaces, ones that are already off the beaten
track somewhat, were similar prices to further out industrial space, but
as neil points out its existing planning usage classes may be an issue.

To clarify, discussions on location right now are to help us figure out
what kind of spaces might work, what kind of locations might be
possible, and fundamentally how expensive is it likely to be. 

We need people to trawl the property websites, to keep their eyes out
around the town, and do what research they can to find this information,
it is not something that is useful furthered in pub back rooms.

Without an idea of the costs, it is going to be difficult to make firm
plans on how many and how much membership we need to achieve it.