UKC

I just built a climbing wall in my loft. It’s good but too small, so I’ve sold my house and bought a bigger one. Now I’ve got space in the garden to go to town, I was surprised by something with planning regulations & wanted to ask if I’ve missed something.

it appears I can build a climbing wall up to 4m high in my garden without planning permission. I’ve read and reread, and it still seems to say the same.

have I missed something?

I’m in the middle of building a summer house, the restrictions are the same..

Your build is not located on land forward of a wall forming the principal elevation – not in front of your house.
• The build is single storey with a maximum eaves height of 2.5 metres and a maximum overall height of 4 metres if it has a dual-pitched roof, or 3 metres in any other case.
• If the build is located within 2 metres
of the property’s boundary, the entire building is not more than 2.5 metres high.
• The build has no veranda or balcony. Raised platforms such as decking should be no higher than 30cm from ground level

There’s an additional restriction that you need permission to build a structure at the side of your house in a National Park or AONB/conservation area

so, if it’s closer than 2m to a boundary, max height of 2.5m. Further away, then it’s either 3m or 4m depending on structure. 3m is safe in any case. If you build 4m, and someone complains, then it’s down to whether the planning inspector deems your structure to have a dual-pitched roof.

This information is all over the internet and on planning portals.

Yeah - unless you've got a big garden, 2.5m is the limit, 4m if you've got the space.

Ultimately it will more likely come down to a) how visible it is to your neighbours and b) how much they care.

Some kids' climbing frames fall foul of the same restrictions, though most are capped at 2.5m for this reason...

I think this is regarding a permanent construction. If you can convince them it's a temporary, moveable constructive you can get away with more. Perhaps make it with a folding top and freestanding and I think you might be able to circumnavigate some of the restrictions. As long as you can remove the top section in a reasonable fashion, you don't have to do so regularly, just demonstrate that you can? A tilting wall would obviously reduce the height and so you could have it 4m at 15 degrees but substantially less, perhaps 3, at 45 degrees.

Build first, apologise later.

At worst you may have to unscrew some bits of wood to demonstrate its 'temporary' nature.

I built one at roughly 4m in my garden and all was fine.. until I put a slate roof over it😊 and a neighbour grassed me up to planning. I easily got retrospective planning after submitting some crude hand drawn plans. They came round and thought it was really cool.

My advice is to fully expect to want to put some form of siding/roof covering as it gets super grim in the winter