Tag Archives: permitted development

Buy log cabins

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What is the process of buying log cabin homes or smaller log cabins? With log cabin homes   you need to consider planning permission, and so have to go through the normal route of planning applications.

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There are situations where full planning is not necessary, and permitted development rules apply such as with certain garden buildings and some granny annexes – see our granny annexe range article.

Log cabin in the gardenOnce you have a site and have spoken with the council and decided which route is appropriate, then you need to choose a model, or talk to us about bespoke log cabins, where we make the cabin to your plans.

Once you have chosen the model and have the relevant permissions, you can contact us to order.

A specification of all items to be delivered will be sent with a contract / order form for larger buildings and a confirmation of order details with smaller buildings. Once you are happy with the details, the next stage is to supply a deposit. Depending upon the project, a deposit of varying size is required and stage payments upon manufacture and delivery of the building. If we are erecting the cabin for you, we will then require payment stages for the build.

An idea of delivery date will be discussed at time of order and this will be tighened up as it gets closer to the date and a definite delivery date can be established. As each cabin is manufactured to order, there is always a delay of some weeks before delivery, as there are many logs to cut and assemble for all but the smallest of cabins. For all cabins you will need to have some sort of foundation work (small log cabins use hard standing / concrete / slabs). We will discuss the requirements with you and smooth the process of you buying and erecting the cabin of your choice, if you require help or are having the cabin erected by us.

Permitted Development

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Before we start, here is a massive disclaimer.  We have written this article as a guide only. We are not planning consultants and we are not responsible for whether or not you are allowed to build in your garden and the information below is we hope a useful starting point. You MUST get an official okay from your council to be sure.

Not everyone knows that you are able to build a log cabin in your garden without too much restriction, up to a point. There are a few basic rules to adhere to when looking at building a log cabin in your garden.

  • Firstly the building must not be more than half the size of your garden curtilage i.e. the size of the plot of land you are going to site it.
  • Secondly, it must be more than 5 metres from your main residence.
  • Thirdly, it must be more than one metre from your boundary line. Although more recent legislation allows it to be right up to your boundary line as long as it is not more than two and a half meters in height.
  • Fourthly, it must be use as an extension of your family activities, i.e. gym, music room or a place for people to sleep over. ( how long is not clear).
  • Finally it must not be used for commercial gain.

Permitted development use as a granny annexe.

(Note from editor, If you’re looking for a granny annexe, please see our new section on granny annexes). There are few grey areas here.

As mentioned above you can use it as an extension of your family activities and having it as a granny annexe is one of those, however and here is the grey area.

If you install BOTH a kitchen and a bathroom then the local authority will look on it as a stand alone building and will require you to apply for planning on it.
You can however have EITHER a bathroom or a kitchen without any issues as there will still be a dependency on the main residence for bathing or cooking and preparing food depending on which one you choose.

It is always best to consult your local planning office to clarify this issue as many individual authorities have a different view of this.

Exceptions:
In some cases the local planning office will look favourable on a granny annexe even with both a bathroom and kitchen where there is seen to be a need to support and look after elderly relatives in their final years, it takes a burden away from the local council and saves them money. You can in such circumstances have a condition of building the granny annexe that states that after the elderly relatives have past on that you will de commission the kitchen and bring the building back to permitted development status.

Permitted development exceptions:

There are few exceptions to all of the above.

If you live in a conservation area then any building that is over ten cubic meters in size will need approval. Ten cubic meters is effectively any building more than two metres by two meters by two metres. So basically any building at all.

Similarly if you live in an area designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty then the same thing usually applies.

If the building will be situated in your garden whereby it is within five meters of a public highway and has cause to obstruct the line of vision then you will need to consult the highways authority and planning department.

In all cases these are general rules which in the vast majority of cases hold true but it is always worth checking with the local department or speaking to an independent planning consultant if you are not sure. See also our articles on Permitted development outbuildings and Permitted development in layman’s terms.

Planning consultants Cambridgeshire

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Many of our customers have planning issues that they need to address, for adding granny annexes, building houses on their land etc.  For this reason, we are constructing a planning consultants directory, listing consultants throughout the UK. To this end, we are also writing blog articles on planning consultant fees, permitted development for outbuildingsetc., and continue to suppliment this with other articles on various counties and planning issues. 

How to choose a planning consultant in Cambridgeshire



There are many to choose from in Cambridgeshire, but as always, we suggest you contact them and make an informed choice:

Garth Hanlon
Savills
Unex House
132-134 Hills Road
Cambridge
Dorset
CB2 2PA
Tel 01223 347000
www.savills.com/planning

Ms Clare Fairweather
Pegasus Planning Group
3 Pioneer Court
Chivers Way
Histon
Cambridge
CB4 9PT
Tel01223 202100
www.pegasuspg.co.uk

Mr Graham Wright
Birketts LLP
Daedalus House
Station Road
Cambridge
Cambridgeshire
CB1 2RE
Tel 01223 326600
www.birketts.co.uk

As Cambridgeshire is a large county, we suggest you also consider whether surrounding counties might have someone closer.

Whoever you choose, we suggest that you ask them for their experience.  Some relevant questions include:

  • What is their relationship like with the local council?
  • What is their success rate?
  • Have they dealt with similar cases to your own? If they have, what was the outcome?
  • Can they give references from satisfied customers?
  • What sort of time scale do they believe the planning should take?
  • What do they believe the likely outcome of your planning application or problem will be?

Initially, you should establish any likely fees that you will incur as a result of a planning consultant’s actions on your behalf.  Make sure that they consult with you at each stage before other professionals are brought in, such as architects. 

We hope that you have found this useful and we wish you good luck in your search for a Cambridgeshire planning consultant.

Planning consultants Hertfordshire

Here is the second in our range of articles to do specifically with listing planning consultants in and around the UK. Previously, we dealt with planning consultants in London and how to choose them.  We have also dealt with planning consultant fees, outlining why you might consider the fees for a consultant worthwhile,  and permitted development for outbuildings, which gives some details and useful links on the subject.

How to choose a Hertfordshire planning consultant

We have given some details here, of consultants we have found, but ask you to look at their track record and acquire references before using them.

Dr Mervyn Miller
Based in Baldock
Hertfordshire
Tel: 01462 742685

Barker Parry Town Planning Limited
Based in Hitchin
Herts
Tel: 01462 420224

Shireconsulting
Based in St Albans
Telephone: 01727 838455

We have decided to highlight particular areas of the country, as we are often asked about planning issues and our first answer to people is that they should generally meet with a  planning consultant.

To this end I am now compiling a list of consultants and working through these, to create a directory, including Hertfordshire. More details will be available shortly within our directory, so please bookmark this blog post and come back shortly for the directory entries. 

Hertfordshire is a large county, and it might be that a consultant within the county is not as close as one, say in Essex, if you happen to be near the border.  For this reason, we have split the counties, but also suggest you look at adjacent ones. 

When speaking to consultants, one thing that has come up is that county boundaries may not be necessarily the best definition of where they can cover.  So consider also our specialism directory, which lists the same consultants, but by their specialist fields.  Within this,  we will be asking the consultants to list their preferred and serviced areas. 

We hope this initial list has been useful, and wish you good luck in your planning and search for the right professional to help you with it!

Permitted development outbuildings

Outbuildings
This is our second article on permitted development in layman’s terms.  See our first article for a link to the government website on such matters, so that you can consult the rules yourself.

We all want the rules set out in a language we can understand, so, in plain and simple terms here is a potted summary of what you should be able to do with home offices.

Planning permission is not required to run a small business from your home,
provided that the primary and predominant use of the house remains as a
dwelling.

It is very difficult to make hard and fast statements as to when
running a business from home would cross the threshold and actually need
permission. This is because a lot depends on how it could affect neighbours
or change the char­ac­ter of the house. For example, having a small office
in an outbuilding that contains little more than a computer is very
different from running a car repair and spraying busi­ness from that same
building.

The amount of noise, traffic, visitors and the existence of
employees are all highly relevant. In today’s hi-tech world, many businesses
can exist invisibly within houses or in outbuildings in the garden without
involving any change of use in planning terms.

So, best of luck with your project and remember you can do a lot more than you think you can do without formal planning.

Permitted development in layman’s terms

The rules on permitted development are a bit of a grey area and the
legislation is probably one of the worst drafted in recent memory, I get the
feeling that it was intended to be like that!  Here is a link to the government
website on such matters, this will bore you senseless:
http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/permission/responsibilities/planningpermission/permitted

But I know that what we all want is the rules set out in language we can all
understand. So, in plain and simple terms here is a potted summary of what
you should be able to do;

Detached Buildings
The construction and use of detached buildings in the garden of a house
offers huge possibilities for the creation of additional space. Although the
right to build outbuildings is restricted in Conservation Areas and AONB it
is not restricted in green belt areas and offers real potential to make
other­wise very restricted plots much more useful. The only limit to the
floor-space is that they do not cover more than half the garden area or
exceed four metres in height with a pitched roof or three metres with a flat
roof. The uses that they can be put to are very wide and limited only in the
same way as the use of the house itself. This is provided that the house and
its garden and outbuildings are only occupied as one residence.

So the best way of thinking about outbuildings is to consider them as parts
of the house – simply detached and located in the garden. Their uses can
include a games room, study, home office, additional lounge, work­shop,
laundry, guest bedrooms etc. The fact that such outbuildings can be built to
resi­dential standards, with cavity wall insulation and so forth does not
affect the need for planning permission and as I say, provided such
outbuild­ings are further than five metres from the house, not situated
between the house and any road and do not cover more than 50 percent of the
garden there are no limits in the area of floor space created.

It’s hard to understand why more people do not take advantage of the possibilities they
offer.