It’s usually one of the first questions anyone asks before they commit to a steel building, and fair enough. Nobody wants to order a building, get it delivered, and then find out the council isn’t happy about it.
The honest answer is: it depends. That’s not us dodging the question, it genuinely does depend on what you’re building, where, and what it’s for. A steel building for storing tractors on a working farm is judged completely differently to a steel garage going up behind a house in a housing estate, and both of those are different again to a new industrial unit on a business park.
What we can do is walk you through what actually decides it, so you’ve got a proper sense of where you stand before you pick up the phone.
What Actually Decides It
A few things tend to matter more than anything else.
Size and height are the big ones. Bigger buildings and taller buildings are more likely to need planning permission, simply because they have more impact on the area around them. Where the building sits on your land matters too, particularly how close it is to a boundary. And what the building is actually for changes the rules completely, because agricultural land, residential gardens and commercial sites all sit under different bits of planning law.
Then there’s location. If you’re in a conservation area, near a listed building, or your property is subject to what’s called an Article 4 direction (which removes some of the usual permitted development rights), the normal rules often don’t apply and you’ll need to check with your council regardless of size.
Agricultural Buildings
Farms get a reasonable amount of leeway here, because agriculture has its own permitted development rights under what’s known as Part 6 of the General Permitted Development Order. As a rough guide, holdings of five hectares or more can generally put up new agricultural buildings without full planning permission, up to a certain floor area, and there’s usually a faster prior notification process (around 28 days) rather than a full application. Smaller holdings have a lower allowance.
That said, “reasonably necessary for agriculture” is a phrase that comes up a lot in this part of planning law, and councils do interpret it. If you’re anywhere near the thresholds, or the building could be seen as having a use beyond farming, it’s worth a proper check rather than assuming.
Commercial and Industrial Buildings
New commercial and industrial steel buildings almost always go through the full planning permission process, especially if it’s a new structure rather than an extension to something that already has consent. This isn’t a bad thing, it just means there’s a longer lead time to factor in, with drawings, structural information and sometimes a change of use application if the land wasn’t previously used for that purpose.
This is exactly the kind of thing that catches people out if they’ve priced up a project without building in enough time for planning. Better to know early.
Garden and Domestic Steel Buildings
For a steel garage, workshop or storage building in a garden, permitted development rights often cover you, provided you stay within the usual limits. As a general guide, single storey outbuildings are commonly allowed up to 4 metres high with a pitched roof, or 3 metres for any other roof shape, dropping to 2.5 metres if you’re building within 2 metres of a boundary. All the outbuildings on your plot combined also can’t take up more than half the garden area, and the building generally needs to sit behind the front of the house rather than in front of it.
Go over any of those limits, or you’re in a flat or a listed building, and you’ll be looking at a full application.
Why It’s Worth Checking Before You Order Anything
None of the above is a substitute for actually speaking to your local planning authority or getting proper advice for your specific site. Rules get interpreted differently from council to council, they do get updated, and there are enough edge cases (shared boundaries, easements, previous planning history on the site) that a five minute phone call to the council, or a Lawful Development Certificate application if you want it in writing, can save a lot of grief further down the line.
How Hamilton Steel Buildings Helps With This
This is genuinely part of what we do, not something we bolt on afterwards. Planning and Building Control sit right in the middle of our process. During your initial consultation we’ll talk through what you’re building and where, and if it needs planning permission or Building Control approval, we provide the general arrangement drawings and structural calculations needed for the application, and we liaise directly with your local council or a private building inspector to get site inspections arranged. You can see how that fits into the wider build process on our process page.
We’ve done this often enough across County Durham, Sunderland, Newcastle and further afield to know which councils want what, and roughly how long things take locally, which is one of the reasons our Durham steel building installation work goes as smoothly as it does.
Once permission is sorted, the next thing worth reading is our guide to getting your site ready for a steel building installation, which covers access, groundwork and drainage.
If you’re not sure where your project stands, have a look through our range of buildings and then get in touch. Why not get in touch today and we’ll tell you honestly what’s likely involved for your site, before you spend a penny.