Q&As

Can a freehold owner dig under their garage to create an underground space without obtaining planning permission?

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Produced in partnership with Jim Ryan of Acuity Law
Published on: 05 September 2023
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Pursuant to section 57 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (TCPA 1990), planning permission is required for ‘the carrying out of any development of land’.

TCPA 1990, s 58(1)(a) provides that planning permission may be granted by a ‘development order’. The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 2015 (the GPDO), SI 2015/596 is a development order for these purposes. It allows specific types of development, set out in different classes in the GPDO, SI 2015/596, Sch 2 Pt 1 to be carried out without the need to obtain planning permission.

Some basement developments may constitute permitted development, depending on the facts.

The enlargement, improvement or other alteration of a dwellinghouse is permitted development under GPDO, SI 2015/596, Sch 2 Pt 1, Class A, subject to exceptions

Jim Ryan
Jim Ryan

Partner, Acuity Law

Jim is an experienced specialist town and country planning lawyer, whose practice also includes compulsory purchase, highway law, rights of way and the law of commons and town and village greens.
 
His early career was spent as an engineering technician in Local Government and then as an infrastructure designer in the housebuilding industry, before reading for a law degree at UWE Bristol and then training with Burges Salmon in Bristol.
 
On qualification in 2001, he joined Burges Salmon’s Planning Team and later spent four and a half years as sole legal counsel to M J Gleeson Group plc, before returning to private practice.
 
Jim is also a Board Trustee with Emmaus, Bristol, a charity helping people out of homelessness.

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