Hi Shortie, and welcome! It's great to have you on board and I look forward to chatting with you. It's amazing that you have four kids - that's quite a handful! I have two little ones myself and often feel like I've exceeded my own limits, so can hardly imagine four

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Regarding this forum, it is obviously all about permitting questions, permit office reviews, and related resources. My hope is to drum up some discourse about peoples' real-world experiences with permitting authorities and in the process increase government transparency, shared knowledge, and accountability...that's my lofty mission statement anyways! I'm a government regulator and also a forum enthusiast, and I feel like there's really some unrealized potential to make a difference through more online discourse and knowledge sharing.
Not sure how helpful this is but I do have an "England" section at the bottom of my "permit offices" homepage, as you may have noticed. If you happen to have experience dealing with any UK permit offices then please don't hesitate to share. I think most people need approvals from the government from time to time but it's often uneventful and there's really not much to write home about. But it's often true that "no news is good news" as far as government operations go and even relating positive/neutral experiences can provide a worthwhile data point.
But the bottom line is that I really appreciate your presence here and look forward to hearing your thoughts about permitting or otherwise. If you have any questions or candid feedback about the forum, please don't hesitate to let me know!