Today in the news is a story that Eric Pickles (Government Communities Secretary) has made a statement about his intentions to make it easier to develop living annexes as part of your own home. This seems to be driven by the economic need to provide more housing. The debate has kicked off big-style and no doubt there will be more to come. Eric Pickles proposal seems to represent a whole lot of common sense and should benefit a lot of families. Councils will no doubt want to protect their revenues and the idea that council tax will not be levied on this type of development may lead to a bit of wrangling!
In any case the debate has started and at least this statement somewhat reflects the trend shown by enquiries and questions received from readers of our main website planning page.
Our current government seems to want planning to be easier. It seems to me that slow planning is a result of fewer applications in recent years! I guess we can say this is human nature at work.
Read more in depth on planning permission and building regulations for Garden Buildings, Garden Offices and Studios at:
http://www.aarco.co.uk/Do_I_Need_Planning_Permission.html
Richard
