Landscape Design near you

In England, a garden studio, store or covered structure is granted planning permission by Class E of Schedule 2, Part 1 of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015, subject to conditions the Planning Portal summarises. The ones that shape a design are the height rules — single storey, eaves no more than 2.5 metres, four metres overall with a dual-pitched roof and three metres with any other roof, dropping to 2.5 metres for anything within two metres of a boundary — and the requirement that no more than half the land around the original house is covered by additions and buildings. Verandas, balconies and raised platforms are excluded, with a platform defined as anything more than 0.3 metres high, and on designated land such as a National Park or an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty the area of buildings and enclosures more than 20 metres from the house is capped at 10 square metres.

Wales publishes its own set, and one of the limits has no counterpart in England. The Welsh Government's guidance states that outbuildings must not cover more than 50 per cent of the curtilage, must not be in front of the building line of the principal elevation, and must sit either no closer to a highway than the house or at least five metres from it, whichever is nearer. Heights are capped at four metres for a roof with more than one pitch and three metres for a single pitch or other roof form, with 2.5 metres applying within two metres of a boundary. The distinctive rule is that anything within two metres of the house itself cannot exceed 1.5 metres in height, which quietly rules out the low store tucked against the back wall that an English design would treat as unremarkable.

Both countries treat a listed building as a stop sign. The Planning Portal states that within the curtilage of a listed building any outbuilding will require planning permission, and permitted development rights can also be withdrawn by condition or by an Article 4 direction, which is common in conservation areas. The design stage is the moment to ask the local planning authority whether the rights still exist at your address, rather than discovering it after the base has been poured.

Scotland works from Class 3 of Schedule 1 to the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (Scotland) Order 1992, and the arithmetic is genuinely different. Eaves may not exceed three metres and no part of the development may exceed four metres in height, but the boundary trigger is tighter in distance and the same in height: anything within one metre of the curtilage boundary is limited to 2.5 metres. The 50 per cent test is applied to the front or rear curtilage and, unusually, is calculated excluding any hard surface or deck. Development is not permitted forward of a wall forming the principal elevation, or a side elevation where that elevation fronts a road. In a conservation area the permitted footprint falls to eight square metres, and within the curtilage of a listed building to four.

Northern Ireland uses Part 1 of the Schedule to the Planning (General Permitted Development) Order (Northern Ireland) 2015, where buildings and enclosures within the curtilage of a dwellinghouse sit in Class D. The height ceiling is four metres, the eaves limit of 2.5 metres applies within two metres of the curtilage boundary, and the total ground covered by buildings or enclosures other than the original house may not exceed 50 per cent of the curtilage. There is also a condition with no English equivalent: no part may be within 3.5 metres of a curtilage boundary with a road that lies opposite the rear wall of the house. As everywhere else, nothing may go forward of a wall fronting a road that forms the principal or a side elevation.

An independent designer is worth it when the garden has a problem rather than just an empty space: steep levels, a difficult aspect, a site that floods, or a client who wants to tender the work and compare like with like. The output is a document that belongs to you, which means you can put the same specification in front of several contractors and read the differences in their prices as differences in approach rather than differences in assumption. The cost of the drawings is separate from the cost of the garden, which some people find hard to accept until they have seen two quotations that are not describing the same job.

Design and build is simpler and is often the better answer for a straightforward plot. One firm draws it, prices it and builds it, there is no gap between intention and execution, and nobody can blame anyone else when a detail does not work. The trade-off is that you lose the ability to compare, and the design tends to be shaped by what that firm builds most easily. The version to be wary of is the third one: no drawing at all, a verbal description and a single lump sum. It is not that the work will be bad, it is that neither side will later be able to say what was agreed.

Design fees move with the size of the site, the number of drawings you need and how much of the job the designer stays involved in. The variables that matter are whether a measured level survey is included or bought in, how many structures and level changes have to be detailed, whether construction details are drawn or left to the contractor, whether a planting plan and schedule are part of the package, and whether the appointment ends at the drawings or continues through tendering and site visits. A flat rear garden with a lawn and two borders is a fraction of the work of a terraced plot with retaining, steps and a building at the top.

LokalMatch is the introduction, not the design. Set out the garden once with your postcode — its rough size, what is wrong with it now, and how far you want the drawings to go — and designers and landscapers working in your area contact you. Using LokalMatch costs homeowners nothing; the professionals pay for the requests they receive. LokalMatch does not draw, build or manage anything, does not set prices and does not vet, rank or recommend the people who reply, so comparing what each fee actually includes, and asking who is responsible for any planning application, is work that stays with you.