Do I Need Planning Permission.co.uk
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I have a 1900s garage/outbuilding located in the corner of what was, pre 1940s, a field with fantastic views. I would like to convert the garage into a live/work pied a terre. It is 1.5 metres outside a Conservation Area and within an AONB. The Council bought the field at some point and in 40s/50s built houses on it. The council rented the garage to a relative, who lived elsewhere in the village, until offering relative the RTB in 1980s. The relative bought it and passed it on to me. It is accessed down a narrow track adopted by the Council. It is in an open turning area close to a row of dilapidated single storey farm buildings. The field to the side is now earmarked on the local plan for housing. All new housing has to be primary residence but not sure if this includes a conversion of existing building. If I can go up a storey and add a balcony it might gets round requirement for outside garden space. The garage has no land beyond it’s footprint. My main concern is parking/bins. Parking stds for single garage are 6mx3m internal area. The garage is not quite square 5.4m x 4.18m x 5.95m x 4.15m and because of where the double doors are I can only park parallel with the 4.18m short side, but this is sufficient to get my 2-seater Smart car in. Is the planning dept likely to enforce the current parking stds and dismiss my application? Do they have discretion to make exceptions where a proposal is exceptional? The garage walls are 0.45m thick so I could demolished the garage thereby increasing the internal dimensions to meet the 6m x 3m standard. I could continue to park my Smart car in the same orientation leaving room for bins/bikes/stairs up, but these would eat into the required parking std space. It is unlikely I would be able to reverse parallel park a large family car into the space and no space would be left for the bins etc. I can't find anything in parking standards to say you have to enter the garage from a particular orientation or be able to demonstrate you can actually get the car in/out - it only talks about internal dimensions 6m x 3m. By demolishing and rebuilding presumably it is no longer a conversion so might fall fowl of some occupancy restrictions but might enable a unique modern rebuild. Anyone out there with experience of such matters - what are your views? PS. might have to do an archeological survey!

I forgot to say the garage is within the village boundary and the dilapidated farm buildings are earmarked for small business units.