In article ,
Lynda Thornton writes:
| In article , Al Reynolds
| writes
|
| It's worth knowing that some council planning departments
| are now counting pergolas towards "permitted development"
| if they are attached to the house - they consider them
| equivalent to a garden room. Best to check this if you already
| have an extension or conservatory.
|
| Thanks for that info - that thought had crossed my mind actually, but we
| don't have any other kind of extension and this pergola would be in the
| place of where a conservatory would be logically built, so I don't think
| there would be a problem with it. A lot of the houses around here have
| pergolas already, some quite sizeable too. I think it's a bit much for
| councils to consider them a room though, they're still open to the
| elements and you can't exactly sit in them in the winter can you!

It is unclear whether they have the power to do this, in the case
of a simple pergola. The exact wording is:

Subject to the following provisions of this section, in this
Act, except where the context otherwise requires, "development,"
means the carrying out of building, engineering, mining or other
operations in, on, over or under land, or the making of any
material change in the use of any buildings or other land.

Obviously, if the pergola has even small foundations and is firmly
attached to the house, it is more of a building operation than one
that does not and is not. But exactly where the lawyers would
draw the boundary is unclear - and do NOT make the mistake of
thinking that the planning authority's belief is necessarily a
good one.

As I understand the law (and it is interpretation, here), the key
is whether the pergola is easily removable without damaging or
otherwise affecting the house or land to a significant extent.
That is a summary of what I was once told by a (real) lawyer. All
viewed from the obscurist legalistic perspectives, of course ....

Certainly, I can see nothing in that Act that distinguishes the
attachment of a simple pergola to a house from the insertion of
wall-eyes to put climbers up. If they have the power to control
the former, the next step is to control the latter.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.