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10m rear garden rule


Dusty

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Am I correct that any new build home must have a 10m minimum depth rear garden?   I ask as I want to have a single story attached garden room which will partly encroach into the rear garden leaving 6m to the rear boundary. The main 2 story part of the building will still leave 13m rear garden depth to the boundary. Would this be acceptable or can nothing encroach into the 10m space please?

 

Many thanks 

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Hi - i'm not familiar with this stipulation but then what do I know? All I would say is take a walk around any new development by a mass builder and you will no doubt soon see that the "10 metre " requirement is just a fantasy, given the postage stamps they offer for back gardens!!

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Not come across that rule and you need to check your local authority requirements, do they have any planning guidance documents?

my plans going into planning soon are for a 6m depth from house to rear boundary, and the local authority has a minimum area requirement which mine exceeds. I hope it will be o.k.

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I am going through planning at the moment. My local council has a new Local Plan that is vocal about amenity space but I have not read any specific measurement requirements. It seems to be principles-based and dependent on the house being built. For example, an area for outside play is to be provided if it is a 3-bed house but not if it has fewer bedrooms.

 

My recent learning was that the new Local Plan has been driven by residents' quite reasonable complaints about the inadequacy in design of new houses from the mass house builders. The local plan has reacted to this by instigating draconian limitations to counter it, which in turn has the unintended consequence of both complicating and distorting my build when my build will be hugely better than any mass built box anyway. The law of unintended consequences. Mini-rant over! xD

Edited by Dreadnaught
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1 hour ago, Ashley said:

Am I correct that any new build home must have a 10m minimum depth rear garden?   I ask as I want to have a single story attached garden room which will partly encroach into the rear garden leaving 6m to the rear boundary. The main 2 story part of the building will still leave 13m rear garden depth to the boundary. Would this be acceptable or can nothing encroach into the 10m space please?

 

Many thanks 

 

You need to check actual policy, at national and local level. The biggest distance is likely to be habitable room window facing habitable room window, and is about privacy and overlooking. 

 

It may alter eg if there is a 2m brick wall in between. Or if you offer obscure glazing, or a dog leg angle, or other things you come up with eg a brick wall.

 

54 minutes ago, Dreadnaught said:

The local plan has reacted to this by instigating draconian limitations to counter it, which in turn has the unintended consequence of both complicating and distorting my build when my build will be hugely better than any mass built box anyway. The law of unintended consequences. 

 

This depends on the status of the new Local Plan, as to how much weight it gets. If your Planning App is in before it is in force, then it should be done mainly on saved policies from the existing. But it will help to nod to the new ones.

 

I started my largish planning application to get the permission in before the proposed local plan took us out of the housing allocations. We got it through Ok on appeal after a political refusal, but the Council are so supremely competent that 6 years later the new lot have just entirely restarted the process after kicking out the old lot, who had previously inherited the same exercise from the lot who just got back in albeit they are now independents not Lib Dem’s. 

 

If there are problems with it in law or practicality, write up an email with talking points and chapter and verse and give it to your local paper after a phone call. They love that kind of story. Our Local Plan made The front page at least twice that I know of.

 

Ferdinand

Edited by Ferdinand
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54 minutes ago, Dreadnaught said:

For example, an area for outside play is to be provided if it is a 3-bed house but not if it has fewer bedrooms.

 

How is that different from a private outside amenity area which everyone has always had in their requirements anyway afaik? Do you have to provide a bouncy castle and a sandpit ??

 

F

Edited by Ferdinand
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42 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

How is that different from a private outside amenity area which everyone has always had in their requirements anyway afaik? Do you have to provide a bouncy castle and a sandpit ??

 

Haha, so far as I can tell so far it has been to put a label "play area" on an open space on a plan that could have been equally named many other things.

 

I imagine if I was a developer, the requirement could have been for actual swings and slides.

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36 minutes ago, Dreadnaught said:

 

Haha, so far as I can tell so far it has been to put a label "play area" on an open space on a plan that could have been equally named many other things.

 

I imagine if I was a developer, the requirement could have been for actual swings and slides.

 

Yes, but not for each house. On ours we had to comtrinute to a local playground, which is fine if not a killer amount.

 

If a little bit of linguistic or administrative self-abuse keeps the box tickers and the nimbies happy, then perhaps let them have their fun. If they are not allowed to relabel your plans, then they may find something that actually makes you do something.

 

F

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4 hours ago, Ashley said:

Am I correct that any new build home must have a 10m minimum depth rear garden?

 

No.  Your LPA will have local guidelines, relating to housing density in your locale.  In our case in our village it was 7m.  And even so these are guidelines, not regulations.  The LPA might vary them depending on local conditions, e.g. if your closest point is only single storey; if there is a line of site barrier in the neighbours garden, such as  trees with TPO; if the neighbours house is already less than this guideline.  Your particular case is best discussed using formal "Pre-planning advice"(PPA), IMO. 

 

We found using PPA extremely useful, as our planner gave some very useful advice and some outline recommendations that we followed and he then supported during the application despite neighbours objections, so overall PPA was a useful instrument for us to engage constructively with the LPA.  Note however, that some members will no doubt disagree about the risks and benefits of PPA.

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If your council has a 20m rule you will need to check the exact wording. May only apply to 2nd floor windows.

 

http://planningobjectionletters.co.uk/articles/private-matters

 

Quote

What local authorities can do, however, is produce guidelines. These are normally set out in Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG) or Supplementary Planning Documents (SPD). These provide guidelines for minimum separation distances in different circumstances. For example, a 20m back-to-back distance is commonly applied between habitable room windows in two storey dwellings.

Edited by Temp
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