Garden play equipment, tree houses, trampolines and permitted development.

Garden structures for various forms of play equipment has mushroomed over the last decade with more choice and variety for young families. Most seem to involve the formation of a small hut on stilts many are in excess of 4M high.

If you look at the Permitted Development criteria, no play equipment is even mentioned - this was a real short-site and missed opportunity given that the revised PD wording only can out in late 2008.

If you were to try and categorise what part of the PD classifications children’s play equipment may come under, it is clear that Class E is the nearest that would encompass such items.

Looking at the wording black and white, most children’s play equipment an especially tree houses would fall foul of the dimensions for eaves and ridge heights. However, fortunately most Planning Departments are reluctant to pursue such structures with regard to enforcement action as most fail on the Planners test of expediency.

Most are only brought to the Planners attention by neighbours so you may want to think about where you place the play house and right on the boundary overlooking your neighbours patio may not be the most neighbourly of moves if you want an easy life.

One way to ensure that your play equipment or children’s tree house is exempt from planning permission is to ensure that it is movable and classed as a temporary structure. Therefore concreting all the posts and framework into the ground may not be the wisest of moves.

Some manufactures do removable anchoring kits for their children’s play equipment and tree houses so provided you can demonstrate that you are able to relocate the structure to another part of the garden with ease by no more than two men within 1 hour then I would say that the test of a temporary structure has been well and truly proven.

For a diagram of the restrictions affecting detached garden rooms click here.