'Log cabin' location question

lukerichardson40

Hi all,

Quick question, I'm sure you helpful people will know the answer to.

I have a long garage at the end of my garden. It's old and in a bad way... leaking flat roof, water comes in around the floor, too narrow to fit a car in and open the door.

It's built less than 2 ft from the house behind me.

I want to knock it down and make a nice 'log cabin'. Not really made from logs, but you know the kind I mean, basically a really nice garden shed.

Now, I understand the height requirements and what not for it to be permitted development, but what I'm unsure about is the distance it has to be from my neighbours wall.

I know if it was going on a fresh piece of land, i.e., the garage wasn't there, it must be at least 2m away from the wall. Is this the case here? Being that there is already a structure there, I'll just be changing it for something much nicer. The cabin will be shorter than the garage, but it will stick out in to my garden a meter or 2 more than the garage.

Any help would be great, I can't find much on about a situation like this.

Luke

Furts

A log cabin is combustible - it represents a fire risk. This would mean it cannot be within one metre of the boundary and should be at least a metre from your home.

I doubt you need Buildings Regulations but if the shed is far bigger than your post suggests then you will need to consider this.

Alex1983

We built a log cabin and the council came to check it as the neighbours complained, they measured the distance from the boundary and said it needed to be at least 2m away and under, I think 4m in height.

lukerichardson40

Thanks for the replies guys. I don't want to get in to any kind of bother with the council.


I have decided to keep some of the garage structure.


I am keeping the back wall (the one adjacent to my neighbour). The 2 side walls are being kept with the garage door being bricked up.


The 2 side walls are being extended a couple of meters in to the garage. Then the front will be made up of timber, and the internal insulation etc on a frame. A new roof will be added and that's pretty much that. Sounds easy, but this way I can keep the structure and not have to change much of anything.


Thanks again!


Luke

martinsurrey

Furts wrote: »

A log cabin is combustible - it represents a fire risk. This would mean it cannot be within one metre of the boundary and should be at least a metre from your home.

I doubt you need Buildings Regulations but if the shed is far bigger than your post suggests then you will need to consider this.

that is not right.

Permitted development rights (planning) you can build right up to the boundary/other buildings as long as the TOTAL height is less than 2.5m

Building regs exemption, you need to be built at least 1m from the boundary if you are are BOTH greater than 15 square meters, AND built from combustible materials.

so OP could build a wooden 14.9sq m outbuilding which is 2.4m tall, 6 inches from the neighbors wall, without planning or building regs.

15.1sqm+ you would need to be 1m away.
2.6m+ tall you need to be 2m away.

onomatopoeia99

If it's under 2.5m tall and less than 15sqm you can usually go up to the boundary without building regs or planning. There are special cases where PD rights don't apply, which you should investigate.
If it's substantially non-combustible (which a log cabin won't be) then the building regs exemption is 30sqm. If it's 15sqm-30sqm and combustible, it must be at least 1m from the boundary to get building regs exemption.

The planning portal website has a lot of useful information on this. It's where I got the information above from, which you should check yourself.

Furts

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

If it's under 2.5m tall and less than 15sqm you can usually go up to the boundary without building regs or planning. There are special cases where PD rights don't apply, which you should investigate.
If it's substantially non-combustible (which a log cabin won't be) then the building regs exemption is 30sqm. If it's 15sqm-30sqm and combustible, it must be at least 1m from the boundary to get building regs exemption.

The planning portal website has a lot of useful information on this. It's where I got the information above from, which you should check yourself.

This comes with a proviso. Buildings Regulations are a minimal standard - the lowest that the law will allow anyone to get away with. Therefore anyone should give serious thought to the wisdom of any log cabin, regardless of size, being erected on a boundary. What damage might be caused were it to catch fire has to be the default position.

TheCyclingProgrammer

The planning and building regs rules are here:
https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200130/common_projects/43/outbuildings

As pointed out above, the rules for permitted development and building regs are different. There is no distance requirement as far as planning is concerned. If the building is under 15sqm and contains no sleeping accommodation then building regs won't normally apply. You can build right up to the boundary though you should still consider any safety aspects of building right up to the boundary and also maintenance - if your building needs treating you'll need access around all sides of the building.

Your building doesn't necessarily need to be timber clad - there are non-combustible options like cement fibre board cladding that you could consider, for example (Cedral/Hardieplank) or composite cladding.

lukerichardson40

Thanks everyone, very helpful information! I was kind of hoping for a easy answer, but as is typical with these kind of things it is never simple... don't know what I was thinking


I will get in touch with my local planning department just to be safe. Ill give my neighbours a knock too, just out of politeness to let them know what I am planning.


Thanks again, I am sure this thread will be helpful to others!