This is a question we get asked a lot and it is an important one too. There is no one or easy answer to this. Shepherd’s huts themselves don’t need planning permission, or do they?
Right, before we dive in here you need to sit down comfortably with a brew because some of this might require reading a few times!
Mmmm!
So, first off, every shepherd’s hut project is different. It depends on the hut’s intended use whether or not you will require planning permission.
Is the hut for personal use or business use? Where in the country are you located? What type of land do you wish to site your hut on?
Historically, shepherd’s huts were an important part of farming equipment as farmers used shepherd’s huts to sleep in when tending to their flock of sheep. Fast forward to the 21st century and farming methods have changed dramatically. Farmers now use barns and purpose-built buildings to house their sheep during the lambing period.
Like everything else, things never stay the same!
So back to the question do shepherd’s huts require planning permission? Before we go much further, (disclaimer) I want to make it very clear from the off, I don’t proclaim to be an expert on this subject, every project is different, and every council is different. In this article, we are going to look at various areas of the planning laws connected to shepherd’s huts.
What is permitted development and how would this affect my shepherd’s hut?
Permitted development is the right to be excluded from the need to acquire planning permission for, in this case, a shepherd’s hut or change of use of the land in which it is to be sited on, stated by the government planning law. Gov.ukpermitted development guidelines. Oh, and a shepherd’s hut, in the eyes of the planning world, in some circumstances for permitted development, is called an outbuilding, yes confusing I know.
Shepherd’s huts for personal use
There are many ways a shepherd’s hut can be used for personal use:
- A garden hut provides somewhere to relax, unwind and enjoy summer evenings.
- An office hut is ideal for readers and writers, providing a tranquil space which would be ideal for writing memoirs or an enjoyable space to work from home.
- A shepherd’s hut can even be a spare room of your house but it must only be for the enjoyment of the homeowner’s family.
On most occasions, you won’t require planning permission, but this doesn’t mean you’ve got the green light as there are restrictions within your garden as to where you may site your hut. Yes, a shocker I know but I will detail some of the points as we go through this article.
There is a height restriction of 2.5 metres if your Shepherd’s hut is to be sited within a 2-metre curtilage of the boundary of your garden. This may cause an issue with your choice of a Shepherd’s hut as their height is around 3 metres to 3.2 metres depending on which hut company you choose to build your shepherd’s hut. This may push you to look at a different structure like pods, garden room fixed structures or modular rooms to keep under this 2.5-metre rule. With a dual pitch roof, the highest point must not exceed 4 metres from the ground but remember the 2 metres from the boundary rule, so a shepherd’s hut is fine beyond those 2 metres of the boundary. Oh, and just to note you can’t site your hut in the front garden, in fact no further than the face of the front of your property.
Who does your hut over look?
What does this mean? Well, this is when your shepherd’s hut location in your garden would allow you, within your hut, to look over to a neighbour’s garden or property. This is due to the elevated height of the hut and window position. A way around this may be the glass type within your windows, for example obscure glass as opposed to clear glass and even window positioning within your hut. Something like a 2-metre-high fence against the neighbour’s property might be sufficient in restricting the view from your hut as another option.
A Shepherd’s hut as an additional room to your property
The condition of an additional room to your property is that the person who uses the shepherd’s hut as an additional room, bedroom, lounge, bathroom etc. must still have dependency on the use of the property for cooking and eating. It cannot be self-contained, or it falls outside of permitted development.
The shepherd’s hut must not exceed 50% of the total area of the property’s garden/land. Sheds and all other buildings and extensions to the original house must be included when calculating the original 50% limit.
Designated land restrictions
Designated land including National Parks, Broads, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, conservation areas, World Heritage Sites, and grounds of listed buildings may not allow permitted planning. If you live in one of these areas and are looking to locate a shepherd’s hut on your land or garden, a guide is, the total area to be covered by shepherd’s huts must not exceed 10 square metres and must be sited more than 20 metres from property walls. So to give you a perspective of size here, 10 square metres equates to one of our 16ft shepherd’s huts. Planning permission would most likely be required under these circumstances.
If you have trees you may need planning permission
Another consideration when looking at potential siting locations for your shepherd’s hut is trees. If your garden or land is lucky enough to have trees positioned around it, you may require a tree survey to identify root systems that may bepotentially damaged by hard standing areas installed to support your shepherd’s hut.
If your shepherd’s hut is to increase the rooms to your property, councils look at car parking spaces for the property as well because the hut would be seen as an additional bedroom to the property for example, a three bedroom house with an addition of a hut would jump the property to a 4 bedroom house thus meaning a third car parking space would be required because the council would see the hut as an adult would be using the extra room and a 4 bedroom house now requires off road parking for three cars.
A good proportion of council planning law can be difficult to interpret and can in some cases contradict itself. The information I have detailed in this article is available on the old interweb for anyone to access. As I mentioned earlier in this article, I am no expert here, just trying to condense the information for you to consume in one place. Another good source of information is to contact an independent planning consultant who would always be happy to advise and conduct a report specific to your project and give you clarity on what your planning options are. A planning consultant can also help attain a Lawful Development Certificate for permitted development if required. A very informative site to visit is PlanningGeek.co.uk or PlanningGeek.com Community on Facebook where you will be able to ask questions of the ever-growing community, currently around 14k members, and maybe even the Planning Geek himself. And don’t forget the planning portal which is available to access online from your council planning webpage.
Shepherd’s huts for business use
Shepherd’s huts to be used for a business venture such as:
- glamping
- an addition to a B&B business
- accommodation for a wedding venue
- fishing shelter hut
- catering
- bar
- shop hut
- even a beauty and therapy hut would all generally require planning permission.
Some of the following information overlaps the previous information from the huts for personal use section. Yes, I know confusing, now if you’ve got a little tear in your eye bear with me, I’ll do my best to explain.
Change of use of land
So, shepherd’s huts don’t themselves need planning permission BUT if you are a farmer who wants to diversify by opening a glamping site or a homeowner with a large garden who also wants to start a glamping site then planning permission would need to be obtained for the change of use of the land that your shepherd’s hut would sit on. This section is connected to such a big driving force in certain industries right now it could have an article written around it all on its own.
This change of use of land is from agriculture or domestic to commercial use. There are some organisations that may be able to issue exemption certifications to allow you to rent out a shepherd’s hut without acquiring planning permission.
One organisation would be Freedom Camping Club, which will assess you based on available land, access, location, and available facilities prior to providing an exemption certification. The Greener Camping Club provides exemption certification for eco-friendly camping and glamping sites. These guys currently have 160 plus camping and glamping sites, all over the UK. But you would only be able to rent to Greener camping club members.
Woodland Champions Club have 100 sites across the UK. This company specialises in woodland glamping sites along with helping landowners plant over 100,000 trees and yes, these guys also provide exemption certificates but as with the other similar organisations, an assessment would need to be approved first.
Just to note, the exemption certification is only for the shepherd’s huts on the land not for any other structure like a toilet and showering block, and certifications can be retracted if organisations rules are broken.
For further details please visit the organisations websites.
Impact on the environment and the surrounding area
When planning permission is required for you to locate a shepherd’s hut or huts on your land, a higher level of scrutiny is enforced to make sure the development is in keeping with the character of the area and this is more potent when you’re located within a National Parks, Broads, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, conservation areas, World Heritage Sites, and grounds of listed buildings. I am not going to bore you with more of the same details that I mentioned earlier in the article.
A further consideration when planning a site for your shepherd’s hut is where your black and grey waste is going to go if you plan to have a toilet or shower in your hut.
There are a variety of options here:
- Sewage treatment plant
- mains sewer
- a holding tank system which is a flat tank that sits beneath the hut, above ground holding the waste.
These systems need regular emptying which can be undertaken by a porter loo company. A masonry or timber toilet block may also be constructed separate from any shepherd’s hut but again this would require consideration during the planning process. Oh, and not forgetting the composting toilets which are popular with off grid or ecofriendlyshepherd’s hut projects for toilet use only. This all falls under the Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) section of the application.
Sustainability
Sustainability is unsurprisingly becoming more and more important to local councils with different councils having different policies. There is definitely a move towards the requirement to achieve beauty alongside sustainability. You may think “I’ll put some solar in and chuck a wind turbine up for good measure” and although this is a green and renewable source of energy, you’d unfortunately be off the mark. They’re looking for lesser reliance on vehicles and more sustainable methods of travel along with many other things like green spaces in relation to biodiversity and climate change, flood risk and developing attractive pedestrian and cycle routes.
What Else Needs To Be Considered For My Planning Application
Well, if you’ve got this far, you’re doing well! There are still areas that need to be looked at with regards to a sufficient planning application. A key consideration that often doesn’t come to mind is road and/or parking plan drawings with visual splays for vehicles entering the highways from your site. Access drawings will demonstrate this when you assign an architect to draw plans up for the site. WHAT?! I need an architect I hear you say… oh yes! Drainage plans, designated parking, road access, proposed layout, plan specifications are all what your architect will complete on your instruction and crucially to the required regulations. Something else you will be required to obtain is a caravan license which comes with its own regulations of 3 metres distance between boundaries, buildings, and similar but 3.5 metres distance between another shepherd’s hut or similar i.e. pods. This is only if you are looking to use your shepherd’s hut for glamping or similar use.
Pre-Application Advice
If you find yourself in a situation where you are really unsure whether you require planning permission Pre-Planning advice allows you to receive advise from your local planning authority before submitting a formal planning application. This back doorway in can also help in highlighting any potential issues or specific requirements for your shepherd’s hut project but crucially highlights any challenges or modifications required for a successful planning application. I have banted on about asking for extra support from an independent planning consultant mainly because I have the view of asking the experts for the right advise first time and saving a lot of potential suffering later on. You can ask an advisor for a Planning Appraisal or an assessment. This appraisal / assessment will detail all that is relevant to your project and is a good starting block for any shepherd’s hut project.
Preparing Your Planning Application
Preparing a planning application is quite daunting. A comprehensive application is key. The application should include detailed information regarding the intended use of the shepherd’s hut along with any documents that would support the application for example architectural drawings, traffic surveys on the land access road, tree surveys if trees are closely located to where you wish to situate your hut. This is where the professional advice from an independent planning consultant is invaluable. At the time your application is ready to be submitted to the local planning authority and the required forms are completed a fee will be required to be paid, it is imperative to ensure the application is completed accurately to avoid any delays in the process ahead. Understanding the application process detailed by your local planning authority can help navigate the application submission processes. Unfortunately, this only the start, many more steps are to follow like answering any questions or queries, requests for additional information and basicallykeeping your finger on the pulse with good communication with your local planning authority or your chosen planning adviser will pay dividends.
So now you’re thinking well I’ve got all this information, what’s it going to cost? Well, whatever your plans and ideas are, whether you are thinking of creating a shepherd’s hut glamping site or simply looking to site a shepherd’s hut at the end of the garden for a spare room or a home office I have put some cost ranges down, based on 2024 prices, for what you may be looking at paying.
Planning Consultants costs vary depending on what your project size and needs are, costs range from around £130 to £300 per hour and business plan consultant’s fees range anywhere from £500 to £3,000 and in some cases more.
Architect’s costs also vary depending again on the size and the details within your shepherd’s hut project. Cost ranges are between £70 to £150 per hour. Some architects work on a fixed price based on the size of the project.
Highway access companies charge generally from £350 to £950 per access. Again, the exact costs will depend on the complexity of the site or project.
Tree surveys for residential gardens, seen as a basic survey, costs may range from £300 to £800 whereas tree surveys for commercial land may range from £1,500 to £3,000 and if your eyes aren’t watering yet public parks and gardens costs between £5,000 and £10,000 per survey.
The cost of submitting a Planning permission application in England is £624. Slightly less in Wales at £460. But more in Scotland at £600. Larger sites and sites that have more hectares involved within the project may cost more than what is stated.
It’s okay you’re at the end now, I hope I have given you enough information to help you understand what might be involved with your Shepherd’s hut venture and if you only take one thing away from this article is get yourself a qualified Planning Consultant to help you navigate through the whole process of planning, They will generally have contacts for the Individual people, architect, tree surveyor’s, and so on that you may need to help you produce a accurately put together planning permission application.
Oh, and don’t forget the cost of your Shepherd’s hut! You can find that out from one of my previous articles on “How much does a Shepherd’s hut cost”.