converting back garden to parking space - building regs?

Not an expert, but I do know that planning regs have changed so that you now need planning permission to remove a lawn and replace it with a hard surface. It was in response to the floods of the past couple of summers, as it was seen that there was less ground to 'absorb' the excess rainfall. Hope that makes sense - my brain is beer-addled fuzzy today

Thanks Flissy666, that's what I feared. Oh well, I suppose I'll just have to keep trying them.

One way around it could be to leave the lawn as it is, and put two thin strips of patio slabs down, which you could drive directly onto. You'd need to make sure that the slabs could support the weight of the car without cracking, and take some time to make it look pretty and appropriate to a garden, but it could work...

Thank you. I wasn't aware of that and we were planning on paving our front garden for that reason. Will make sure we bear this in mind.

Have others on your street done the same? You also need to consider access rights. If you need to drive over a pavement to get onto the now-lawn then you may also come across a problem. I know of someone who paid a fortune doing something like this and after the event the coucil wrote to say they did not have access rights to drive over the 1m (or whatever it was) pavement so the moeny was wasted or they risked heavy fines every time they parked! That was a long time ago though so ....? As Flissy said, the drainage thing is also something to bear in mind - i like her suggestion of slab strips - you'd need to be a better parking aim than me though!

Have a look at www.planningportal.gov.uk - its only front gardens that need planning permission for over 5sqm of non-permeable surfacing, so you might be able to do it without planning permission. Where I live the dropped kerb is dealt with by the Local Highways Authority (the County Council, but if you live in a unitary authority they will be the Highway Authority). As far as I know they will do the work at a reasobnable price, it is possible to get someone else to do the work but it needs to be approved by Highways anyway. I don't know how other Council's deal with this though.

That's useful to know. We've been thinking about turning our front patch of lawn into an extra parking space. I was aware of not wanting to make drainage harder so wouldn't have chosen paving anyway, but didn't realise there were regs in place for it. We were thinking gravel, any idea if that's exempt as it would allow drainage? Also thought about some sort of reinforcement to the grass like you get in some car parks, haven't found a good source of a specific solution but might be worth looking into LP? Particularly as it would keep the back garden looking nicer.

Not my specialist area but I believe that this will be under your permitted rights as back gardens are considered 'brownfield land' and there are no policies that a council can put in place to keep it green - if you know what I mean. Front gardens are different

As the other correctly mentioned the rules changed earlier this year and you should use permeable materials - good for the environment anyway.

You will need to apply to the Highways at either the county council or your borough council - this might be the sticking point as they can refuse on road safety grounds. Permission and the works normally costs around £150 or - depends on where you are.

Brilliant - thanks for all the advice.

This is also a very useful document for those interested in this:

http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/planningandbuilding/pavingfrontgardens

What you can do, instead of using slabs, is put down a sort of plastic crate sheeting stuff. Sounds odd but I know a company called Form Pave do it. It means the grass can grow through it and water can drain, but you still have a firm base to park on.

I don't have any personal experience but when I was telling my aunt that we might eventually pave our front driveway instead of the existing gravel, she said we had to use special porus paving slabs which get around the drainage problem. So there are types of paving that you can get that satisfy the drainage requirements but still provide a hard standing for parking.

Many of the paving companies - Marshalls - the market leader for a start do permable paving surfaces. So all you that want to pave gardens - it's fine as long as you use the right surface. Some of the surfaces even absorb CO2 and other gases nowadays. Marshalls have some advice on what you can do in their catalogue and I guess on their website too. They also do the grow your grass through type surfaces as well - they are not meant to be parked on everyday though.

(Marshalls are one of my clients and take their environmental credentials and the ability to help others with theirs seriously)