Is your garden looking a little bare? Perhaps you want somewhere nice to sit and enjoy the smell of freshly cut grass, or watch the bird feeder do its job?

What about replacing that old shed or summer house?

If so, a garden room might be for you. These little outbuildings can be an excellent space for relaxing or even working in a designated office.

This blog explores how garden rooms can usually be constructed without planning permission under Permitted Development Class E – subject to conditions, of course.

What is a garden room?

A garden room is a loosely defined term. Most people take it as ‘somewhere nice to sit outside’. It’s essentially a high-quality summer house and falls somewhere between that and a cabin.

Think of a space where you’d enjoy spending a summer’s afternoon or evening with your significant other or watching the kids play on the lawn. You could use it to host family or friends or play board games – whatever you want. Many people use garden rooms as their work-from-home offices.

Garden rooms are all the rage in garden centres at the moment. When you next head out to one on a family outing, check out the models they store outside. Garden rooms typically retail at about £10,000; you’ll find most closer to £15,000. Compared to the lineups of sheds and summerhouses, these will likely have nice interior walls, electrical connections and more glass.

Of course, an alternative method is to construct a custom garden room at home using contractors or, if you’re handy, DIY. That is, provided you can under what’s known as Permitted Development. Using contractors would likely equate to higher costs than the generic models found at garden centres or online, while DIY should be much cheaper (if you can source some cheap wood, which isn’t easy these days).

Notably, a garden room is not a separate accommodation. You can’t live in it every day year-round (or invite anyone else to). In general, this might mean no kitchen or clear and obvious bathroom. However, with planning permission, you may be able to put drains, a sink, a shower and/or a toilet in.

Can I build a garden room under Permitted Development?

Permitted Development details what you can and can’t build, modify or change on your property without going down the traditional planning permission route. You must meet specific criteria to be eligible for these rights.

In legal terms, a garden room is classed as an outbuilding. This also includes almost anything else you could place in your garden or patio, including sheds, cabins, swimming pools, pool houses, garages, decks or small animal pens or enclosures. The Permitted Development laws surrounding these structures are found under Class E: Buildings etc.

In most cases, you’ll be fine to build a garden room using your Class E rights. That is, provided you meet the following criteria:

• The garden room must be behind the front wall of the house.
  • (The front wall is called the principal elevation and is taken to be the wall facing the road, containing bay windows or a porch. Check which wall counts as the front if you live on a corner or junction.)
• Height restrictions (measured from ground level to the highest point):
  • 5 metres if within two metres of the property boundary
  • Four metres if away from the property boundary and with a dual-pitched or hipped (four-way pitch) roof
  • Three metres in all other cases
• The eaves (gutters) must be 2.5 metres high or lower.
• The total amount of Permitted Development construction (including any home extensions) must be less than 50% of the entire lot size (apart from the original house’s footprint).
• You can’t use your rights if the home was converted from commercial to residential via Permitted Development.
• You can’t include a veranda, balcony, raised platform or satellite dish.
• You can’t use your Permitted Development rights for a garden room if you live in a listed building.

There are also several extra restrictions if you live in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, a World Heritage Site or a National Park. The total area of Permitted Development outbuildings within twenty metres of the home must be less than ten square metres in total footprint.

You can’t construct a garden room (or any other outbuilding) to the sides of a home in these regions, either.