There's a few well-to-do cyclist homes in trouble on my commute if the law really does apply to Scotland.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Greens anti-Shed Shock
(32 posts)-
Posted 9 years ago #
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they will all have obtained planning permission
what about summer houses in back gardens? Do you need planning perms there? Some of these are getting pretty big.
I know a man he has five sheds. I said on visiting that I felt he had room for one more, his wife said - everyone says that and I thought I was being funny.
also know a man with a lovely shed with a green roof.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Whilst I've always adored the word 'shed', I've recently become more interested than is healthy in watersheds - not sure if there's a connection. I was delighted to spot the point where the basins of the Tay, Spey and Dee meet - the summit of Carn Ealar. Now that would make a rugged CCE ride-out.
Posted 9 years ago # -
IWRATS - generally, in Scotland you need planning permission for any shed that protrudes beyond any wall forming part of the front or side elevation of a house, where the house fronts onto a road.
However, there are time limits after which a local authority cannot take enforcement action against an unauthorised structure (usually 10 years).
It could be that the bike sheds you see have permission, or that they have been there so long the Council can't take action.
Planning enforcement action is discretionary, i.e. the Council can choose whether or not to take action and national guidance advises them only do so when it is in the public interest - so they might have decided to turn a blind eye to these sheds.
More likely is that the sheds don't have permission and the Council don't know about them, normally they only find out about them when a neighbour raises a stink.
I know SPOKES has been pursuing the Council on this issue - but it really requires a national solution ( a simple change to the General Permitted Development Order would sort this out).
This is all assuming the houses in question aren't listed - it gets even more complicated then.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Gembo - back gardens are fine, unless the total area taken up by sheds, summer houses etc. is greater than 50% of the area of the garden, or the structures are above a certain height - then you need permission.
Details:
Posted 9 years ago # -
@morningsider
Thanks, most interesting. The bike sheds seem to spread like a rash - I guess one house builds one and the others see what a good idea it is and follow suit. I'm thinking of a side-street off Mayfield road. It does seem odd that you can park a ten square metre vehicle in front of your neighbour's house but not put a discrete bike shed in your own garden.
I had a boss once who claimed he didn't need permission for the shed he built in Shandon as it was under shoulder height. Suspect he invented that one.
Posted 9 years ago # -
IWRATS - If I didn't know better I'd suspect you were having a cheeky snipe at the Green party there. The article makes it quite clear that it is (in the author's opinion) the officials that are getting all pig-headed about bike shed planning enforcement, not the Green councillors.
AFAIK the Green group of councillors here in Edinburgh has listened to representations on exactly this issue from shed owners and Spokes, and has pressed for a presumption towards granting consent for bike storage sheds. Don't have the docs to hand, but I'm sure you can use Googol.
Posted 9 years ago # -
@crowriver
I can think of political parties more worthy of a side swipe than the Greens! CCE being a known haunt of careful readers I figured there was little reason to include any contextual analysis of my own.
What piqued my interest me was the irony in the juxtaposition of our ability to park motor vehicles for free anywhere on a public road and our inability to build bike sheds on our own ground without municipal say-so.
Posted 9 years ago # -
IWRATS Dave Hewitt walked the Scottish watershed and wrote an account of it called Walking the Watershed. It's free to read online at Glasgow Digital Library.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Posted 9 years ago #
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"
Mitchell Fraser (@jmitchfraser)
01/08/2014 14:13
@sallyhinch @nuttyxander @CyclingEdin anything stopping you buying an old van, SORNing it and storing your bikes in it?"
Posted 9 years ago # -
I'm pretty sure that parking a van in your front garden wouldn't need planning permission, as there is no way it could be considered "development" - which is what requires permission. I suppose some of the ancillary work (hard standing, changes to fences) might need planning permission in some limited circumstances - particularly in a conservation area or in the garden of a listed building.
There's just the small matter of having a rotting old van parked in your garden.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Rotting old van? Some people keep fleets of ambulances just in case;
Posted 9 years ago # -
Hopefully my extra-long short-handled small-wheeled decorative wooden garden wheelbarrow would be acceptable:
Posted 9 years ago # -
"Waist height"
Posted 9 years ago # -
Paint it with Cuprinol. Add some ornamental features. Hammer trellis on the sides without doors and get climbers covering them. It then becomes a garden feature rather than a shed. You don't need planning permission for an obelisk, do you?
Posted 9 years ago # -
I'm not convinced even back gardens are fine, as our own property deeds state 'no structures'. This again is unlikely to mean much unless a neighbour raised an objection and was aware of that bit in your deeds.
@wingpig's 'wheelbarrow' would get round that one nicely though!
Posted 9 years ago # -
wingpig - I like it! I suppose it might fall under the definition of a "building operation" or "installation" - both of which require permission in a front garden, but I'm not sure. If you could genuinely wheel it about, then you might just get away with it.
Posted 9 years ago # -
f you could genuinely wheel it about, then you might just get away with it.
As indeed could the bicycle thieves. (Facepalm).
Posted 9 years ago # -
"As indeed could the bicycle thieves."
Don't worry, that did occur. Fortunately, even if I were to unscrew the bike shed from the supporting frame, magically move it to the front through the gate which is too narrow for it to pass through, attach two small handles unable to support the weight and a couple of likewise inadequate small wheels, it's still be too wide to wheel along the path and out of the gate, even if it could be wheeled across the grass and over the border onto the path, not to mention the GROUND ANCHOR AND LOCKS any self-respecting bicycle owner would also install if they were installing a shed made to look like and act ever so slightly like a wheelbarrow IN THEIR FRONT GARDEN. There's a line in a book somewhere about "so they'd need to be quite strong thieves" which is occurring to me, alongside what Gilks says to Dirk in Richard's music room.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Previous shed ponderings with good advice from Morningsider once again:
http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=8928
(I bought the Trimetals shed - very good it is too)
Posted 9 years ago # -
Farmers and assorted land owning gentry seem to get round planning laws by putting their billboards on the back of trailers. Does that mean you can build a shed of any size and then devise a means to attach a tow-bar and wheels to it?
Posted 9 years ago # -
@acsimpson - that's a good point that has been made before. Instead of a shed, wheel in a rusty chassis of a van, and park the bikes inside that. So much for "street scene"!
Posted 9 years ago # -
acsimpson - the landowners are (very likely) in breach of planning legislation. Control of advert regulations allow vehicles to display adverts without the need for planning permission (because that would be daft).
However, the regulations are clear that "this exception shall not apply to advertisements displayed on any such vehicle or vessel during any period when it is being used primarily for the display of advertisements."
Like lots of annoyances, the law exists to deal with it, but the money and inclination to deal with it are sometimes lacking.
Posted 9 years ago # -
@Morningsider, If it's a question of enforcement I wonder why they bother with a trailer at all. I guess it also applies to the mobile billboards which you sometimes see driving round which don't appear to serve any other purpose.
Posted 9 years ago # -
They probably bother with the trailer because the landowner/farmer equivalent of CCE doesn't have a Morningsider to read the regulations for them and let them know it's pointless.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Or perhaps it's all a ruse as they know most of us aren't Morningsider so think that it's OK as it's a trailer and don't complain while if a billboard was suddenly erected in a field we might.
Posted 9 years ago # -
There are no sheds in Edinburgh. They are huts.
Posted 9 years ago # -
@wangi
Excellent. We're starting an Edinburgh glossary;
Shed = Hut
Rat = Water Vole
Pavement = Shared Use Facility
Squiggly red stripe = Quality Bike CorridorPosted 9 years ago #
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