Dirty Trick No. 12:- Your detached garden outbuilding has too many roof slopes to be 4M high.

This one cropped up with one of my own designs for a large detached swimming pool building in Chiltern District Councils area and only in 2016.  For 8 years prior, provided the roof was pitched with a ridge line of no matter how may angles or slopes we always obtained the required certificate of lawful development.

Just when you think you have seen and heard it all from the Planners on using technicalities to deny a client their PD rights, they come up with this one.  Absolutely jaw dropping (IMHO).

The client wanted to appeal which we duly lost.  Apparently stating that 8 previous years of the all the Councils agreeing that a hipped roof for example with a pretty looking gable ended projection over the porch for example complied with the PD wording of a dual pitched roof, the appeal inspector simply ignored this fact.  You couldn't make it up.  Therefore, the  result of this is that most garden buildings can now only be oblong or square with a gable ended design to ensure that only 2 roof slopes are formed - that's the logistical conclusion of this stupid interpretation - that's a winner then for garden building design? (NOT).

This event alone simply shows the lengths that the Planners will go to exploit negatively the technicalities of PD to deny you your development rights.  In this case they were prepared to stifle creative good building design for a well articulated character garden building into a simplistic 'wooden box' that no one really wanted or adds value to the local area.  'Cut your nose of to spite your face' seems to be the cliche saying here I think.

Suggestion:- For the purposes of the C of LD application for a Class E garden building make sure that the roof design of your own intended structure is not too complicated.  Explore the options for a well articulated design of garden building if you need to as this councils decision, I think, is not typical and could simply be a 'rogue malicious interpretation' to stop a large garden buiding being built in the Green Belt - It didn't work - a large simpler garden building was built instead.