Garden Room Workshop: Part 2. Planning permission & Building regs transcript

In the previous video I knocked down my existing garage and I now have a reasonably flat area ready to build my workshop but before I could begin I had to look into what planning permission and building regulations would apply. It took me a while to figure it all out so I thought I’d sum up exactly what you need to know before you start building. This applies to the UK and more specifically to England. So what is the difference between planning permission and Building regulations?

Well, planning permission, that considers the appearance and the use of buildings as well as highway access, the neighbourhood architecture, environment and any impact a construction site has on the surrounding area. Building regs are slightly different, and they set standards for the construction methods (things like health and safety, energy performance and generally just to stop buildings falling over). The two are separate and need to be applied for independently of each other.

So let’s take each in turn and see if I needed either for my project. First up, planning permission. Garden rooms are often allowed under something called permitted devleopment, meaning you don’t need planning permission, but there are a number of criteria that need to be met: 1. On “designated land” (that includes national parks, the Broads, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and World Heritage sites), outbuildings to the side of the house are not permitted development. 2.

On designated land, if the outbuilding is more than 20 metres from the nearest wall of the house, the outbuilding cannot be more than 10 square metres to be permitted development. This is quite restrictive, so if you do live in one of these areas, consider building closer than 20 metres from the house. 3. If you live in a listed building, one judged to be of architectural or historic interest, outbuildings are not permitted development within the grounds. 4.

Outbuildings are not permitted development forward of the principle elevation of the original house. The term original house means the house as it stood on July 1st 1948, if it was built before that date, i.e. not including any extensions built since that date. This one can be slightly contentious as some houses have the front door to the side of the house or maybe the side is closer to the highway than the front is, so determining which side is the principal elevation is up for debate.

If this is the case, you’re probably best speaking to your local planning officer. 5. The proposed outbuilding when added together with extensions to the original house and other buildings including sheds, greenhouses, garages, swimming pools, ponds, sauna cabins, kennels, tennis courts, chicken coops and bee hives cannot exceed 50% of the total area (which does include land to the front and side) around the original house.

Essentially 50% of the original land around the house needs to remain. 6. Any new building must not be separate, self-contained, living accommodation and must not have a microwave antenna. Self contained in this instance means having all the facilities needed to live without using the main house so having a bathroom, a kitchen etc. So if you were planning on building a granny flat for example then you would need planning permission. 7.

Outbuildings must be single storey only. The maximum eaves height, that is where the walls meet the roof, is restricted to 2.5 metres. The highest point must be no more than 4 metres high if the the roof is dual pitched, or 3 metres in any other case. This is ambiguously written but does seem to mean that if you have a flat or mono-pitch roof, the maximum height can be 3 metres. 8. Within 2 meters from a boundary, no part of the outbuilding can be over 2.5 metres in height.

As gardens in the UK can be quite narrow this rule is quite restrictive as most people will not want to waste 2 metres of their garden on each side of their outbuilding. This usually means the building will need to have a flat roof to remain under 2.5 metres. 9. Finally, there must be no balconies or verandas and any surrounding decking must be no higher than 300mm (30cm). For quick reference here is the full list that an outbuilding needs to comply with to be permitted development.

These apply to houses only as outbuildings are not permitted development for flats or maisonettes. Lastly, you should also check with your Local Planning Authority whether permitted development rights apply – in some places they have been removed under what is known as an Article 4 direction. If any of these criteria are not met, you will need to apply for planning permission which is currently £172 for most homeowners.

So let's now turn our attention to building regulations. If you are self-building your garden room and if like me you are not an experienced tradesman it’s likely that you’ll want to avoid having to have building regulations inspections. So let’s look at the criteria: Building regs do not apply to outbuildings if: 1. the floor area is less than 15 square metres and contains no sleeping accomodation. and 2. the floor area is between 15 and 30 metres squared, contains no sleeping accommodation and is either: A) at least one metre from any boundary or B) is constructed of substantially non-combustible materials.

So there are few things to note here: the first is that the floor area refers to the INTERNAL floor area so you can build slightly bigger than 15 or 30 square metres if, when the area covered by external walls and the internal partition walls is deducted from the external area, the internal floor area is below those thresholds. The second is if you are planning a building that is between 15 and 30 metres squared, made from timber (which is obviously a combustible material) AND it’s going to be closer than 1 metre from a boundary there is a way to avoid building regs which I will explain in the next video.

The third thing is just because building regs don’t necessarily apply to your building doesn’t mean that it’s not a good idea to build it to building regulations standards, especially if you want to change its use for sleeping accommodation in the future and in doing so creates a more well-made building overall. If you do need building regulations approval it can cost upwards of £200, depending on the scale of the building.

This video has become a bit longer than I expected so I'll break it down into 2 parts and in the next video I'll explain my design and whether or not I needed planning permission and building regs.