Who has built their own stables/yard?

[kit279]

I was wondering if anyone here has built their own stables and yard from scratch. I'm looking to buy my own equestrian property and have been wondering whether I might get more for my money by buying grazing land and building my own stables afterwards.

So I'd like to know the following:-

-Did you need planning permission and was it easy to get?
-Did you hire contractors or do it yourself? Any recommendations?
-How much did it cost in total and what did you get for your money? How much did laying the concrete base cost?
-Would you recommend building stables or just buying a readymade type yard?

Any additional advice/words of warning much appreciated?

PS - I will stop posting boring posts about houses and building soon, I promise!

 

[martlin]

I am at the moment between properties and decided to go for a farm rather than equestrian property and converting the farm buildings into american barn.
Building stables from scratch is ok in itself, but planning permissions are an absolute nightmare tbh, I am at the end of 3 year battle with planning officers etc and in the end decided to give up the ghost and move.
There are plenty farm properties about for sale and you get more for your money than with a strictly equestrian property.
You can either buy a complete small farm/smallholding or there are also quite a few poping up with just land and buildings.

 

[alison247]

We bought our house 9 yrs ago and built a purpose built yard with concrete fenced coral. We needed pp for 3 stables and hay barn and hard core drive and parking area.
stables/hay barn - levard cost us £4,000
concrete yard 50ft by 40ft £1,000
post and rail fencing for 3 paddocks, £8,000 inc all labour, electrics and self filling water troughs.
total £13,000
we have had stables creasoted twice and nothing else spent in the last nine years.
pp took 6myhs to be granted and we just put up a field shelter till it was granted. as long as you move the shelter every couple of weeks you don't need pp
it was the best thing we have done. our horses are so relaxed and we don't shut them in as they have the choice of the enclosed yard or stables.

 

[Flight]

Hi, Yes I have just been through this ordeal! LOL! It is the best thing I have ever done but also the most frustrating. The concrete base cost £6000, the stables cost about £13000 from Redmires. We did all the base ourselves just paid a jcb driver to do digging out. I am now the very proud owner of 6 stables, a hay barn and tack room. I got planning permission and although it got passed straight through it wasn't easy. The planning people weren't very helpful. I am just in the process of trying to get water and electric put in which is costing in the region of £4000. Extortion if you ask me! Even so I have my own land and yard and its brill! If you can afford it, do it!

 

[RachelB]

My "YO" (my horse is on a friend's land) built her stables two years ago. She had three stables put in, with two "tack room" type spaces on either end - in an L-shape. The only concrete put down was to go under the stables and a tiny way out in front of them... first mistake. She had a local guy put the concrete down and although he did an ok job, when he came back to fill in the rest of the space and make the yard a concrete square he botched it up completely. We get puddles in the most awkward places just outside the stable doors (between the old concrete and the new stuff) and we've had to have three huge (about an inch wide each) drainage channels put in right through the middle of the yard to stop it puddling and freezing over/getting so big it runs into the stables. It looks a mess and all the hay and straw gets stuck in the channels. Very much not impressed... so make sure the person doing the concrete actually knows what they're doing!! Same goes with your water supply... ours wasn't dug deep enough (by the same guy who did our concrete) and we have had countless leaks caused by spiking the pipe with electric fence posts, and now we have two frozen water troughs as the pipe leading up to them both is only just underground and has frozen (luckily neither trough in use... *luckily*!)
If I ever had to have anything like that built, I'd get it built by people who KNOW what they are doing!

PP is required and can be a bugger to get. We put in permission for an arena at the start of last year and it took two goes to get it through (it's a basic 20x40m outdoor and no lights!!)
I'm just glad it's my friend's land and not mine because it would have driven me crazy by now (it does anyway!

)

 

[lachlanandmarcus]

We had ours built this year. Mini barn with outside top doors as well. Smalll yard outside the front and ramp down the side as its not level (NB this lack of level ground increases costs and time a lot!)

We went for a mini barn as we get lots of weather! and also we could have one with opening outside top doors which have windows in the middle of them. So they are open like a normal stable but if you do have to close them in a gale the horses can still look out.

The stable block was a standard Saltire Stables design but with some optional upgrades (portal frame so you can take the stables out or reconfigure the layout without affecting the outside building), upgrading kickboarding, sliding door at front not opening ones cos of winds and sarking board lining to roof (again cos of weather here in NE Scotland).

Cost for this for 4 stables, tack room and wide gangway was £13-14k

Baseworks probably cost £10k, including baseworks and drainage, concreting and water/electrics.

Recommendations:

Dont get someone to mix up concrete on site in a little mixer. Get a lorry load/s of proper stuff with added fibres to protect against frost and also if poss chemical that withstands urine rot. The concrete cos will know what you mean, they wont think you are mad. The only bit we had done by hand, the last bit of the ramp, has started to dissolve in a combination of the first hard frosts up here and the salt we have put on it for grip. The proper stuff has been fine.....

Invest in the industrial quality drainage channel covers if you can, the cast iron ones rather than the thin sharp steel ones. Both clip in and out but thats where the similarity ends, the thin ones are always popping out and I think they are lethal. Also they arent quite flat surface so bits of muck get caught, this doesnt happen with the heavy duty ones. They are expensive but if you can stretch it makes the whole yard much higher quality every day!

You can get Osmo Country colour to paint the stables with, although its about 30-40 a big tin which sounds horrendous, it has about 4x as much pigment in it as a lot of the stainers and so you can do far fewer coats and it has a 10 year quarantee not to crack or split etc and is all natural so totally safe for the horses. google to find a stockist. lovely stuff.

Here are our lovely new stables!

 

[cobden99]

Yes I bought the land first then applied for planning permission to put the stable block up - it was starting to get tricky (the neighbouring council objected as it is green belt) so I withdrew the application and used a company (Acorus) who specialise in this type of thing. It was money well spent as they re-did the application and it went through without a hitch. With hindsight I would have had more hardstanding put down as it can get very muddy, but overall I am very pleased with it. The stables were from Withington Hill and they provided a good service, but with a bigger budget I would use Scotts of Thrapston

 

[Skhosu]

We built a small fmaily complex from scratch. My main advice is go for concrete, breeze block style stables as we had a fire and it would have gone straight through the barn if it had been wooden.
If you are storing feed/lorries in the same building, have a fire break (concrete wall) .
No idea how much it cost as I didn't pay! But ours is fab now, would advise building big stables as you can never have them too big!
And go and have a good look around as many stables/barns as possible to get an idea before you build!

 

[littlemisslauren]

my dad converted a double garage into a huuuuge stable and tackroom/feed room for me years ago

cant really offer any advice as i only needed stabling for the one pony.

i do know that planning permission was a bitch!

 

[jackessex]

i would agree planning is a nightmare we brought 5 acres of prime agricultural land sold as ideal equestrian use in a very horsey area,only to find that the local council were so anti horse it is unbelievable,would not give us change of use which you need to ride or feed horses on ag land nor would they give us planning for stables,this has been going on for three years,now we have "mobile"stables and bark "turnout"that happens to be 20x40!!lol.but still well worth it having been at livery for 12 years its heaven to no that all money spent on it is to our benefit!!!

 

[lucy16]

I checked with local council before I bought my land (was agricultural) to see how they would feel about building stables and a menage.
They gave me lots of good advice so had no problems getting planning permission.

Hired contractors for all of it which cost a lot more than building ourselves but OH is useless at DIY!

If you're just buying land, remember it can be expensive to bring water and electicity in.

Just be realistic when you work out what to buy. I priced everything up, added 10 % on top and still spent more than I thought I would!