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Planning needed for gardens

Catherine Deshayes

Whilst this month has seen the relaxation of planning restrictions surrounding home extensions -  as TheMoveChannel.com's news story of October 1^st reported - planning permission for garden alterations just got a whole lot more complicated...

The home extension changes mean that the majority of homeowners will no longer need to get planning permission to extend their home, which has removed around 80,000 household planning applications from the system.

But, from now on, homeowners wanting to concrete over a front garden or lay a new patio will require permission.

Those wanting to build a garden office, studio or shed will have to get permission, in a move designed to protect neighbours from having to suffer large garden buildings right next-door.

Permission will also be needed if your garden building will sit forward of the principal elevation of your house, facing onto - and visible from - a highway. This will cover most buildings which are put up in front gardens all over the country.

It will also be needed if the height of the eaves (where the gutters are) is more than 2.5 metres, with an overall height of more than four metres for dual pitched roofs and more than three metres for mono-pitched roofs.

All buildings more than 2.5 metres tall must be at least two metres from the boundary, and must not have any verandas, balconies or raised platforms.

In National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, you will need permission if your building covers more than 10 square metres and it is more than 20 metres from your house.

InsideOut Buildings, who design and build environmentally responsible garden offices and granny annexes, are expecting to see 85 per cent of their clients needing planning permission against a previous average of 75 per cent.

"If you want to build a garden office or even a shed more than 2.5 metres tall, it must be more than two metres away from the boundary with your neighbours, making it difficult to do in a small, urban garden, says a spokesperson for InsideOut.

"However, if you are proposing a good quality, well-designed building in a sensible, non-intrusive position, you're very likely to get that permission," the spokesperson added.

The Government hopes the move will halt the loss of green spaces in cities and towns. In London, two thirds of front gardens have been lost in recent decades, making the city even more of a concrete jungle.

New patios will also need planning permission, as the Government are concerned about further surface water flooding. Because so many gardens have been paved over, the water pours into drains and sewers, which then overflow, drastically increasing the chances of flash floods.

If you do want to concrete over your garden, be prepared to spend up to £150 on planning permission.

You can avoid this cost if you use permeable surfaces that allow the water to seep through, such as porous bricks, gravel or slabs that allow rainwater through.

Concreting over gardens can also increase the risk of subsidence because the ground under a drive or patio dries out, so these permeable surfaces may be a more sensible choice anyway.

Picture by imageafter