Planning Guide for Garden Rooms and Pods

Tips and advice in our Planning Guide for Garden Rooms helping you understand some of the processes that may be required when starting your garden room project.

Did you know, there are all sorts of buildings and structures for your garden, that don’t need planning permission or any application to your local authority. However, it’s important to know that conditions and limits do exist where you may need to speak to your local Planning Officer.

Helping guide you when planning garden rooms

Aspire Pods give you a new extra room in your garden fast and without the stress associated with home extension and more complex building work. The design and sizes of our products fall within current permissions for adding a room in your garden.

As long as the structure is no taller than 2.5m and has an internal headroom of 2.2m. In these situations, no additional planning is required. Permitted Development allows the construction of outbuildings such as our pods and this section gives you more information. At Aspire Pods, we’ve got the ideal product creating structures at the permissible sizes while maintaining the maximum permissible height. At the same time, there’s no compromise on thermal performance, rigidity or quality. Importantly, we’ve created a product letting you enjoy a new garden room. Importantly, our products come without the headaches and delays associated with getting approval and planning permission.

General Information for detached garden buildings

Our products don’t normally require planning permission or application for Building Regulations Approval. For small detached buildings such as a garden shed or summerhouse in your garden, building regulations will not normally apply . This is as long as the floor area of the building is less than 15-20 square metres. Furthermore, it is at least 1/2m away from the boundary wall and contains NO sleeping accommodation.

Larger pods with a floor area between 15 square metres and 30 square metres, need to be at least 1m away from the boundary wall of your property. Again you will not normally need to apply for building regulations approval and it must not contain sleeping accommodation.

In both cases, these types of garden buildings should be constructed substantially of non-combustible materials.

At Aspire Pods, we can help you get the perfect garden building even up to thirty metres square or more and excellent thermal performance.

Where you do require Planning Permission

There are other situations where Planning Permission is required. Examples include where the garden building stands in front of the main elevation of the house or where it fronts the main road.

You’ll also need permission where they occupy more than half the land area surrounding your home. Other criteria includes where homes are within conservation areas, heritage sites of areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Should your garden building exceed 30m2, again you need to apply for Planning Permission.

Where you intend to use a garden room as accommodation then you will need Building Regulations approval.

If you have any questions or concerns related to Planning, we also advise visiting your local authority. Take with you plans of your garden as well as information on your proposed garden room. Assuming it meets the required criteria, many local authorities provide you with a ‘letter of permitted development’. In most cases, it’s easy for your local authority to decide whether your garden project qualifies as a permitted development.