I’ve just heard that I will need planning permission to build my new garage; I don’t know why as I wrote the planning advice & project description to be well within dimensions for permitted developments.

I think it may be to do with our house being grade 2 listed. However, the garage is to replace an already removed asbestos affair that is built on our land but outside of the walled curtilage of our property. To explain, we have a cottage with a garden and a brick wall at the end with a gate – there’s then a communal track and then a further garden. The garage is to be built on this further garden. All but one of the other cottages on my row have a garage here (some real ramshackle crap making it look like a shanty as well as the nicer ones).

Anyway, for planning permission will I need architect’s drawing & technical build specification? Also, will I have to abide by building regulations and pay the consequent Council inspection fees? Any help would be great.

You should adhere to building regs even under permitted development. As for the planning is it also a conservation area? Basic drawings would suffice, any technician coukd knock them up. I believe there’s even a few folk on here who’ve helped others with drawings in the past.

Building regs and planning permission are totally separate. If its less than 15m2 or less than 30m2 and built from non combustible materials then you don’t need building regs sign off for the structure. Any electrics will still need sign off but your electrician can do that.

As for planning they are pretty relaxed. Hand drawn sketches may be fine but more detail and better quality means more chance of approval. You do need to submit the right drawings. You should be able to find a list online. Site plans, before and after pics, all to scale. The council should have an online planning application site. You can see what other people are submitting and getting approved.

What you are building would normally be permitted development but you need to check if the house has permitted development rights or had them removed. If its a conservation area (or in a national park) then you will likely need planning. Might need to check listed building consent too

If its down a lane and on the site of other garages then you do have the option of just building it and taking a chance. Depends how likely you are to be grassed up by the neighbours

Listed building?

No permitted development rights and you may need listed building consent as well as planning permission. You will need what the local authority tell you you’ll need. Ask them asap. There may be a fee for advice. But in the big scheme of things it will be nothing. Especially as listed building consent has criminal punishments if you get it wrong. Enjoy being a custodian of the nations heritage.

When you come to sell a lack of building regs may trip you up. At the least it may be used as a reason to reduce the price (which is what I did).

As it’s in the Curtilage of a listed building you need full planning permission, whilst you might not necessarily need listed building consent, it’s a free application and you might as well do both at the same time.

Basic hand drawn drawings would be fine as long as they are to scale, and given its location try and provide as much detail about the materials you’ll use as possible if you know. It’ll save you having to submit further condition applications. You may also want to submit a short statement (1 page max) about how/why this won’t have any impact on the listed building (search the council website for other listed building applications to get an idea).

I’ve just received official notification of the need for planning permission and it doesn’t give any clues why. It does however state that building regs are not required.

I am in a conservation area and in a listed building but what I’m proposing merely replaces a structure already removed. Additionally I believe it falls outside the curtilage; based on this definition:

… the curtilage of a house or dwelling is the land immediately surrounding it, including any closely associated buildings and structures, but excluding any associated “open fields beyond”, and also excluding any closely associated buildings, structures, or divisions that contain the separate intimate activities …”

I would suggest that despite it being my land, my garage could be seen as being built upon an “ associated open field beyond”. This is because my garden is enclosed by a brick wall (and small pig sty) with gated access then there is an access track with a separate “garden” of about 420 sq metres beyond this.

Ah well, I’ll have to wait until Monday to speak to the planning officer.

i bet you are regretting you asked now…

I am in a conservation area

That’s why it’ll need planning then: https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200187/your_responsibilities/37/planning_permission/2

what I’m proposing merely replaces a structure already removed

That should make planning easier but it doesn’t negate the need for planning. You could’ve rebuilt the structure one wall at a time while it was up but once its down it no longer exists

what I’m proposing merely replaces a structure already removed.

My sister lives in a 400 year old timber framed house that had an old concrete double garage – they wanted to replace it with a very nice oak framed double garage but still had to jump through planning hoops to get permission.

An update to this one; managed to speak to the planning officer who explained that it’s due to a number of things:
Proximity to nearest boundary
Ridge height
Listed building – they have sympathy for curtilage issue and had it been due to being listed only, there wouldn’t have been a few
Conservation area

I could’ve altered quite a few things and got around fees but this would’ve been a number of compromises too many, which would ultimately have changed the whole project to something I just don’t want. With this in mind a local architect who I used years ago has agreed to sort the lot out for me, for not a great deal more than it would’ve cost me to do myself (in a typically half-arsed stylee).

Now got to start on the internal plans for my ultimate man cave..!