Patios near you

Start by working out which of the two regimes your patio sits in, because they are very different. A surface laid at or near ground level behind the house has no area restriction under the Planning Portal's guidance. Lift that surface, and it becomes a raised platform, and the permitted development conditions for decking and other raised platforms apply instead: no more than 30 centimetres above the ground, no more than 50 per cent of the garden area covered when counted together with other extensions and outbuildings, and nothing on land forward of a wall forming the principal elevation.

The designated area rules tighten this further. In National Parks, the Broads, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and World Heritage Sites, the maximum area to be covered more than 20 metres from the house is limited to 10 square metres. On Article 2(3) designated land no decking or platform is permitted either side of the house. Within the curtilage of a listed building, no decking or platform is permitted. The Planning Portal also notes that where decking forms part of a larger piece of work, such as an extension with additional decking, different or further rules may apply to the whole development and permission or prior approval may be required.

The underlying legislation explains why 30 centimetres is the number. In the General Permitted Development Order for England, raised in relation to a platform means a platform with a height greater than 0.3 metres, and the household permitted development classes exclude development that would consist of or include the construction or provision of a verandah, balcony or raised platform. So the height is not a guideline that a considerate design can stretch; it is the point at which the permitted development right stops existing. Measure from the existing ground level rather than from the top of new fill, and remember that a listed building needs listed building consent for any significant works, whether internal or external.

Patios run into party wall law more often than people expect, because levelling a terrace usually means digging, and digging near a neighbour's structure is one of the things the Act controls. GOV.UK's guidance confirms the Act applies to England and Wales and covers a new building on or at the boundary of two properties, work to an existing party wall or party structure, and excavation near to and below the foundation level of neighbouring buildings.

The explanatory booklet gives the two excavation triggers precisely. Notice is required if you plan to excavate, or excavate for and construct foundations for a new building or structure, within 3 metres of any part of a neighbouring owner's building or structure where any part of that work will go deeper than the neighbour's foundations. It is also required where the excavation is within 6 metres of any part of a neighbouring owner's building or structure and any part of the work will meet a line drawn downwards at 45 degrees in the direction of the excavation from the bottom of the neighbour's foundations. A patio dug down beside a neighbour's garage, extension or boundary wall can meet either test.

The timetable matters as much as the trigger. The booklet records that section 1, concerning works on the line of junction, requires a notice period of one month; section 2, concerning works to a party wall, requires two months notice; and section 6, concerning excavating near to the adjoining owner's property, requires one month's notice. If an adjoining owner does not respond in writing within 14 days to a notice about an existing structure or an excavation, a dispute is deemed to have arisen and the Act's surveyor procedure follows. It is also worth knowing what the Act does not catch: a party fence wall is a wall that is not part of a building, stands astride the boundary line between lands of different owners and is used to separate those lands, with a masonry garden wall as the example, and it does not include a timber fence. Finally, the booklet is explicit that the Act is separate from planning and building regulations control, so agreement under it removes neither.

A patio is a small piece of civil engineering with furniture on top. The sequence is excavation to a depth suited to the ground, a compacted sub base laid and consolidated in layers, a bedding or laying course appropriate to the paving being used, then the units themselves laid to a deliberate fall, with the joints filled in a way that suits the material. Full bedding matters more than most homeowners realise: flags laid on five dabs of mortar rather than a full bed will rock, ring hollow and eventually crack, and the fault cannot be corrected without lifting them.

The falls are the part to settle in writing. A terrace should shed water away from the house, not towards it, and the finished surface should sit clear of the damp proof course so that rain splashing off the paving cannot bridge into the wall. Where a patio has to meet a threshold at a similar level, the answer is normally a drainage channel along the house rather than a flat terrace, and that channel has to discharge somewhere real. Ask where. A patio that drains into a border which then waterlogs, or onto a neighbour's land, has simply moved the problem.

Where the ground falls away, the difference between a patio and a structure becomes important. Building up the levels to get a flat terrace is the embanking or terracing that the Planning Portal warns might need a planning application, and it also means whatever holds that fill back is now retaining ground and needs designing as such. If your patio scheme involves more than a step or two of level change, treat the retaining element as a separate engineered item with its own drainage rather than as an edging detail.

Water sitting on the surface is the commonest complaint, and it is nearly always a falls problem rather than a paving one. A terrace laid level, or laid to fall into a corner with nowhere to go, holds shallow puddles for days after rain in a British autumn. Beyond the nuisance, standing water keeps the bedding and sub base saturated through the winter, which is how a patio that looked perfect in its first summer starts to move in its second.

Slip is the safety issue, and it is seasonal. Shaded, damp stone and concrete grow algae and moss readily in this climate, and a green film on a smooth flag is genuinely dangerous underfoot, particularly on steps and on the route between the back door and the garden. Porous stone holds moisture and greens faster than dense porcelain, and a north facing terrace under trees will do it every year no matter what is laid.

Movement has three usual causes. Spot bedding leaves flags unsupported so they rock and crack; a sub base that was too thin or never properly compacted settles under use; and ground that was made up rather than dug into carries on consolidating for years. Add tree roots close to a terrace and the pattern becomes easy to read: damage that follows a line usually follows something buried, and damage that clusters near a mature tree usually follows the tree.

Patio work involves wet cement and heavy units, and both carry real risks that a competent contractor manages visibly. HSE warns that wet cement is highly alkaline, that a serious burn or ulcer can rapidly develop if it is trapped against the skin, and that in extreme cases these burns may need a skin graft or cause a limb to be amputated. It adds that cement can cause chemical burns to the eyes and causes both irritant contact dermatitis and, through the hexavalent chromium it contains, allergic contact dermatitis, noting that some skilled tradesmen have been forced to change their trade because of it. The controls it expects include waterproof gloves suitable for high pH substances, long or tight fitting at the end so cement cannot be trapped against the skin, suitable footwear such as wellington boots where large concrete pours take place, and good washing facilities with hot and cold or warm running water, soap and towels, and basins large enough to wash forearms.

The units themselves are a manual handling matter. HSE states that employers must protect workers from the risk of injury from hazardous manual handling, that manual handling means transporting or supporting a load by hand or bodily force including lifting, putting down, pushing, pulling, carrying or moving loads, and that the law requires them to avoid hazardous manual handling so far as reasonably practicable, assess the risk from what cannot be avoided, and reduce that risk to as low as reasonably practicable. Large format flags are heavy enough that a two person lift or a lifting aid is the normal answer rather than a nicety.

For the specification itself, get the sub base depth and material, the bedding method, the paving product and thickness, the joint treatment, the direction and amount of fall, the position relative to the damp proof course, the drainage outlet and the arrangements for spoil all written down before work starts. If the patio is raised or involves building up levels, ask explicitly whether permitted development covers it. If it is near a boundary structure, ask whether party wall notice is required and who is serving it. LokalMatch is where you set that brief out once: you describe the patio, its size, the level change, what surrounds it and what you want laid, and matched patio contractors covering your postcode contact you directly. They pay for the requests they receive, so posting one costs a homeowner nothing. LokalMatch does not build patios and does not set prices, and it does not vet, rank or recommend anyone, so comparing the base specification and the drainage between quotations is still your job.