As a few threads of mine suggest, I’m house hunting at the moment. We can’t seem to quite find what we’re after (space for bikes seems to be an issue when we’ve found houses that are good otherwise…) but many of the houses would be ok if we maybe added an extension or garage.

Can anyone suggest a website that explains planning at a relatively simple level so that I can get a broad understanding of what I’m likely to get planning permission for or not – we’re not planning any crazy Grand Designs type things but I have no idea whether my extension ideas would be feasible or realistic.

http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/permission/

Should help.

Thanks – I have looked at that. I guess what I’m trying to understand though is what is likely to actually get planning permission if it’s required. I don’t want to buy somewhere planning to do XYZ to it and then find that planning permission isn’t likely to be given. Or if a neighbour objects (on unreasonable grounds), how likely is it that will be accepted?

Why not look for the property you want and come in with a lower offer?

The local council will have a guide to what is and isn’t acceptable but it’ll be very dry reading and won’t apply to every property anyway. I’d have a look at what you can do under permitted development (linked from the site above) and check that any house doesn’t have restricted permitted development rights. With the current relaxed rulings that will give you a lot of scope. The other thing do is look at what other local houses have had done. Again it’ll just be a guide but it should give you an idea.

http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/permission/commonprojects/extensions/

Call your council’s* Building Control and have a chat with the manager. Although he/she won’t necessarily be able to give you black and white answers, you might glean enough to give you some pointers.

* i.e the council affiliated with the area you want to move to

Garages / single story side extensions are routinely granted, just be careful on the overall size and the distance to a neighbouring property, also you need enough parking i.e. can you still park the same number of cars.

If you have a couple of meters to the next property or boundary and there are no windows directly on to the side of the house you should have no bother at all. It’s all on the planning portal link above.

Call your council’s* Building Control and have a chat with the manager

Building control do inspections of work once it is under way. You want the planning department. They will be able to tell you if there are any restrictions on permitted development and can be quite helpful, they can also be a bit vague.

Thanks guys – really helpful.

Building control do inspections of work once it is under way.

Yes, agreed. But IMO the ones I’ve spoken with have been quite handy and open re planning/structural questions etc. Can’t do any harm to put in a call.

In my current experience…. unless its going to contravine regs with regards to spacing from current dwellings etc then youll be OK, our council have a rule that you cant go above 30% of the original floor area yet ours is closer to 60%!. You probably wont get away with a two storey unless there is a gap well over 4m between buildings. Regardless of what you plan is you will need planning permission and you will need building regs visit and be carful of party wall agreements which can prove costly!. It seems that recently the planners have relaxed what is permissable but they still have rules so if you see somewhere get in touch and see what they think.

what nickjb said.

also, remember you can drop in and see the ‘duty planner’ that many LAs have, mainly to deal with initial stages of domestic issues.
remember you don’t have to be the owner to talk about the principle of planning/changes on the property. could be useful to take a print or two off of google maps/bing etc. to show what is adjacent/neighbouring if similar.
Also, if the LA has an online archive, search on the address or nearby properties to see what has been approved / turned down recently. many of these have pdfs of the drawings…

Have a look around the area of the house you want( but that needs extending ), Usually if your ‘new’ neighbors have already extended in a similar fashion to what you have in mind you should be OK, and you can ask who they used and any pitfalls (if you’re cheeky and do it before you put in an offer).