Dirty Trick No. 11:- Your detached outbuilding is too large or has too many amenities to be classed as an incidental use.

This one crops up a lot. Many normal homeowners reading the PD legislation relating to class E detached garden buildings would seem to think that the size of a PD complaint building is actually restricted to the 50% building area limitation.

Well it is not - size and level of amenities shown inside the garden building seem to trigger an assessment that the building may be outside of the term ‘incidental‘ It used to be called ancillary use in the previous PD legislation. Even a large multi-acre size of residential garden cannot sustain a large garden building under PD rules especially if the current house is modest.

The Planners will use any reason possible to determine that your proposal is not incidental. No one knows where this threshold is as it is based yet again on fact and degree as a council opinion. Perhaps your swimming pool building shows a male and female changing room and has a bar area, sauna room and gym area - the ‘full monti’ in other words - well this can be considered as a ‘complex’ and no longer incidental use.

Suggestion:- For the purposes of the C of LD application plans simply show the basics and leave out internal luxuries and fittings such as bar, sauna and dual changing facilities. Show the swimming pool larger than it needs to be simply to justify the size of building.