Is Planning Permission Necessary For A Porch Installation?

What’s the overwhelming feeling you have when you look at the front exterior of your house? Does it fill you with pride or could it do with some work to enhance it?

Integrating new windows or upgrading your old roofline are just two of the ways to give it an exciting modern makeover, or you could assimilate a UPVC or brick porch into your front entrance, which will also make it enchanting.

For what a porch costs, you get so much for your money. It will create a fantastic first impression, adding a whole new dimension to the place, and also establish some extra space you can use however you see fit. 

Our UPVC and brick porches have multiple secure mechanisms incorporated into them too, so once they’re locked on either the inside or the outside, there’s no getting past them without a key. 

But if you want to include a porch in your home improvement plans, here’s a very important point – you may need planning permission to get one fitted. 

Customers often aren’t aware of the potential need for planning permission for porches, so that’s why it’s one of the first things we advise them of when they express an interest in the product. 

Any planning permission requirements can be handled by Visual directly with the relevant local authority. We would never dream of installing a porch until we have official confirmation of whether planning permission is needed or not. 

You are asking for trouble if you have a porch fitted without checking if it complies with planning laws, even if you do so innocently. 

Being unaware that it doesn’t comply with the rules if it breaks them won’t be taken as an excuse by your planning department and they can force you to either make a retrospective planning application or have the porch removed and return to your entrance back to how it was. 

What is certain is that you definitely won’t need planning permission for a porch if you have Permitted Development Rights, allowing you to add the porch to your home without delay. 

To enjoy Permitted Development Rights, it must satisfy the following guidelines:

1. the ground floor area (measured externally) would not exceed three square metres.
2. no part would be more than three metres above ground level (height needs to be measured in the same way as for a house extension).
3. no part of the porch would be within two metres of any boundary of the dwellinghouse and the highway.

You will automatically smile when you arrive home to the sight of one of our stunning UPVC or brick porches. More information about the range can be found here.