Over the past few weeks our energy has been focussed on a very promising property near Ruthin in North Wales. However on Friday the painful decision was made to take it no further.
Rhyd-y-cilgwyn had been on our short list for some time but the one serious drawback (for our needs) was the traffic noise from the A525 which skirts the property. We have now reached the point where we feel the search has gone on long enough and something has to give so we wondered whether the road noise was a compromise worth making. The buildings offered plenty of scope and included an attractive main house, several cottages and a substantial set of farm buildings. The land included over seventy acres of deciduous woodland and fields suitable for camping all set within the beautiful Vale of Clwyd. The location made it accessible to the whole country and a bus stopped at the main entrance.
A quiet country location has always been a key element in our search but we also have to find somewhere affordable, accessible, big enough to accommodate our long term needs, with the chance of acceptable planning permissions, etc. Given that this site met so many of our needs and had been so well looked after by the owners, the trustees and steering group had a very difficult time trying to reach agreement on whether to proceed. In fact we had a very tough all-day meeting trying to reach an agreement and the meeting, due to finish at three, and then five, finally ended at seven but still without a resolution.
We then involved an acoustic consultancy to explore the possibility of making an acceptable noise reduction using noise barriers. Unfortunately the conclusion was that even with considerable expenditure over £100,000 the reduction would only be effective close to the barrier and that was assuming that a 500 metre barrier of 2.5 metres would be appropriate and acceptable to the local planning authority.
We remain divided over whether the noise issue was serious enough to pull out of buying what is, in many ways, the ideal property but the consensus decision was to carry on the search and have faith that something like Rhyd-y-cilgwyn will turn up soon in a quieter environment.