Planning Permission For Temporary Buildings

The facts you should know about planning permission for temporary buildings.

Frankly, it's a very grey area.

Although strictly speaking, if you are planning to use the building for more than 28 days, you should apply for planning permission. That’s what the law states….

However, the vast majority of our customers do NOT apply for planning permission before they have their building installed, for two reasons:

1. Applications can, and probably will, take months and months.
2. There are no disadvantages with retrospective planning applications.

Depending upon how long you plan to have your temporary building on site, it may well have come and gone before the planning officer is even aware you’ve had one.

Also, it may not need planning permission anyhow:

To help you – here's the official text, lifted from the government’s own website www.planningportal.gov.uk

Factory or warehouse extensions

Planning permission will not normally be required if your extension is:

• less than 1000 square metres of floor space; and
• less than 25 per cent of the volume of the original building; and
• below the height of the original building.
• The extension must be related to the current use of the building or the provision of staff facilities.

Planning permission will be required if the extension:

• materially affects the external appearance of the building; or
• comes within five metres of the boundary of the site; or
• reduces the amount of space available for parking or turning of vehicles.

Permission may be granted for the erection of a temporary building to last seven years on land required for road improvements in eight or more years, although an application to erect a permanent building would normally be refused.

Can work begin with retrospective permission?

If you go ahead without permission, the local council (or National Park Authority) may ask you to make a retrospective planning application.

If it decides permission should not be granted it may require you to put things back as they were. You can appeal but if the decision is against you and you refuse to comply you may be prosecuted.

How to make an application

You apply to your council for planning permission. Planning applications are decided in line with the development plan unless there are very good reasons not to do so. Points that will be looked at include the following:

• number, size, layout, siting and external appearance of buildings;
• proposed means of access, landscaping and impact on the neighbourhood;
• availability of infrastructure, such as roads and water supply; and
• proposed use of the development.

You don't have to make an application yourself. An agent, such as an architect, solicitor, or builder can make it for you.

Anyone can make an application, irrespective of who owns the land or buildings concerned. However, you have to inform the owner or those who share ownership, as well as any leaseholder whose lease has seven or more years to run, and any agricultural tenant.

So what does all this mean to you?

Simply that, you should obtain permission.

However, you can have the building installed, and then make a retrospective application, if the planning officer asks you to do so.

And this is the way the vast majority of our customers go about it. Because if you make the application before you have the building installed, it can and most probably will, take months and months - time you probably do not have?

And given the majority of people who hire our buildings generally need it without delay, you probably won't have the time to wait for the endless delays of the planning process.

Anyway, if you have any questions you'd like to ask, or if you'd like us to create the scaled drawings you'll need to make an application, feel free to call me any time.

I'll arrange for Andy, our 'CAD MAN' pictured above, to draw up the scaled building specifications you'll need to make your application; no problem.

But perhaps you'd like a quote first? Just click here, leave me a few details and I'll promptly mail you one back