Garden rooms and outbuildings in a conservation area: do you need planning permission?
A garden room or shed in the back garden can still be permitted development in a conservation area, with the same height limits as anywhere else. The difference is where it can go: not beside the house, between its side wall and the boundary.
In most places, an outbuilding can go anywhere except in front of the house. In a conservation area, the strip beside the house is also off limits, because buildings there are visible from the street and fill the gaps between houses. A garden room at the back of the garden is unaffected.
Two other things to check in a conservation area:
- Trees. Trees in a conservation area are protected even without a tree preservation order. You must give the council six weeks' notice before cutting down or pruning most of them, and digging a base or foundations close to one can damage its roots.
- Article 4 directions. Some councils remove the outbuilding right (Class E) in conservation areas.
The usual rules still apply: no more than 2.5m tall within 2m of a boundary, single storey, and used for purposes incidental to the house rather than as a bedroom or somewhere to live.
What changes in a conservation area?
These are the rules that apply only in a conservation area. Everything in the standard limits for garden rooms and outbuildings still applies as well.
- In a conservation area, National Landscape, national park or World Heritage Site, outbuildings can't go between the side wall of the house and the boundary. Class E.3
- In a conservation area you must give the council six weeks' notice before cutting down or pruning most trees, even ones without a tree preservation order.
Not sure whether your home is in a conservation area? Find your council to see the protected areas and Article 4 directions it has published, or start a check to look up your exact address.
Check your own address: put a pin on your house and we'll look up the conservation areas, listed buildings, Article 4 directions and other designations there.
Check my garden room or outbuilding