Difficulties ahead with hardscaped front gardens?
We are sure you will have heard of DEFRA’S “Future Water” and its recommendations for domestic paving with new legislation due in later this year requiring planning permission for paving of front gardens for both existing and new homes.
At the moment householders are free to pave over areas of their front garden. However, if legislation is passed it will mean that if you are wanting to develop a new, or extend an existing area at the front of your property for parking, then you will need planning and building regulations approval.
If your property already has an existing hard standing space and you need to replace it and not extend it in any way, then no approval is needed, although using permeable materials will be encouraged. Further, if you do replace an existing area it is now illegal for surface water run-off to be discharged on to the public highway. We will be attending a training course on domestic sustainable urban drainage (sounds thrilling doesn’t it). If anybody has any queries please do not hesitate to e-mail or phone us and we will see if we can help.