Some people are instantly put off a garden room when they think they might have to apply to planning permission to have one in the garden, but the planning permission process is not as daunting as it is made out.
Before you buy a garden room you should check to see if you need planning permission, you can look at the governments planning portal or our planning permission guide for the basic planning restrictions relating to a garden buildings but the best thing to do is to ring your local planning department, armed with the dimensions of your proposed garden room and ask whether you will need planning permission.
If you do need planning permission you can download an application form from your local councils planning website. Your garden room supplier should be experienced in handling planning applications and will be able to advise you on filling out the form and supply you with scale drawings of the plan and elevations of your garden room. You will also need to include a site map showing the location of your garden room in relationship to the surrounding buildings and boundaries of your garden. You will need to use a scale site map and you can buy Ordnance Survey maps from Trident maps, these maps are centred on your post code and you then need to highlight the boundary of your property with a red line, the location of the garden room should also be highlighted in red, you should use the scale on the map to identify the position of the garden room exactly.
Once you have gathered this information together you should submit your application along with the planning fee which is approximately £150. You will get confirmation of your application and the planning office will write to your immediate neighbours to see if they have any objection to the building, the application will then go to a committee for approval, if approved you will get confirmation in writing. Once you have your planning permission it is valid for three years.
Planning permission isn’t as frightening as it sounds so don’t let it put you off having a garden room
