Outdoor Structures near you

This is the permission most likely to be missed, because it has nothing to do with planning and nobody mentions it when a garden building is bought. In England, the environmental permitting rules apply if you want to do work on or near a main river, on or near a flood defence structure, in a flood plain or on or near a sea defence. The Environment Agency's guidance states that any activity within eight metres of the bank of a main river, or sixteen metres if it is a tidal main river, requires permission, and that erecting structures is among the flood risk activities that are caught.

The consequence for a garden is direct. If the bottom of your plot runs down to a main river, a pool house, a plant room, a raised terrace or even a substantial pergola within that eight metre strip is a flood risk activity, and the fact that it is permitted development for planning purposes makes no difference at all. Some activities are exempt, and where an exemption applies you register it with the Environment Agency, which is free. Where it does not, you apply for a permit.

Two things follow from this practically. First, find out whether the water at the end of your garden is a main river, an ordinary watercourse or a drain, because the answer decides which body you deal with: works in or around a watercourse that is not a main river are handled by the lead local flood authority or the internal drainage board, which is covered in the drainage guidance elsewhere on this site. Second, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own regulators — SEPA, Natural Resources Wales and the Northern Ireland authorities — so an Environment Agency answer is for England only.

The maintenance a pool building needs is driven by moisture rather than by use. A plant room with warm equipment and cold walls will condense; a changing room with no through ventilation will smell; a timber pergola with its posts in a wet surround will fail at ground level while everything above looks sound. Ventilation paths kept clear, gutters kept working and a base kept draining deal with most of it.

The plant room deserves its own routine, because it is where the expensive things live. Check for standing water after heavy rain, check that the ventilation is not blocked by stored garden furniture, look for signs of rodents in autumn and keep chemicals out of it. A plant room used as a general garden store is the most common cause of restricted access and damaged equipment.

Finally, inspect the structure after the weather rather than on a calendar. British damage to garden buildings arrives in specific events: a gale, a long wet spell, a hard frost after a saturated autumn. A walk round after each of those, looking at the roof, the fixings, the base and the door, catches nearly everything worth catching.

These projects price on ground, access and services rather than on floor area alone. The variables are the size and construction of the building, what the ground requires by way of foundations, whether access allows materials and plant to reach the position or everything has to come through a garden, how far drainage and electrical supplies have to be brought, whether the building is heated and therefore needs insulation and ventilation designed, whether consents are needed and which ones, and how much of the existing pool surround has to be lifted and reinstated. A building that sits close to a watercourse can also carry a permitting cost that has nothing to do with construction.

LokalMatch does the introduction and leaves the building to the builders. Describe the structure you want and where it would go, once, with your postcode, and firms in your area that take on this kind of work will contact you with their own proposals. Homeowners are never charged, and the pros pay for the enquiries they receive. LokalMatch does not build anything, has no involvement in pricing, and does not vet, rank or recommend the businesses that reply, so establishing who is responsible for consents and for the drainage design is your job.