Are bike shed planning sagas set to become a thing of the past? Government proposes to relax planning laws to allow bike storage units in front gardens

Bike shed planning sagas – a bizarre phenomenon that has swept across the UK (and beyond) in recent years, featuring clashes between cyclists and local councils over the placement of a bicycle storage unit in their front garden – could soon become a thing of the past, after the government launched an open consultation on proposed changes that could relax restrictions on planning and development rights,  including providing “further flexibilities to permit bike stores in front gardens”.

The proposed changes, which will apply only to England, come as part of a swathe of planned amendments by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities to the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 2015.

According to the department, the changes will “allow householders to enlarge their homes, make alterations or extensions to the roof, and construct buildings incidental to the enjoyment of the main house, such as bin and bike stores”, and form part of the government’s aim to ensure that the planning system is “efficient, effective, and responsive”.

As we have seen on numerous occasions on road.cc in recent years, one area where the planning system is certainly not efficient, effective, or responsive concerns the installation of small bike sheds in the grounds of houses with limited outdoor space.

> Bike shed planning appeal lost as inspector rules wooden structure "harmful" to Grade II listed building

In November, we reported that a homeowner who installed a wooden bike shed outside his one-bedroom property in a Grade II listed former workhouse was told that he will not be allowed to keep the “very modest” storage facility after the council and a planning inspector objected to the structure, claiming it would “lead to a harmful cumulative change to the listed building”.

Barney Tierney said at the time that he thought the bike shed would be a “great alternative option” as his home in Ironbridge, near Telford, does not have a rear garden and “there isn’t much space inside”.

However, the council sent a letter of complaint regarding the structure and ultimately deemed that he would need to apply for retrospective planning permission, an application later denied by Telford and Wrekin Council, who said the wooden shed – despite being missed entirely by a council officer who came to inspect it – would “fail to preserve the setting of the listed building, due to its form, materials, and prominent location which would not be outweighed by any public benefit”.

> Shedgate: Victory for family as bike shed application approved

And in 2021, during a saga so protracted and bizarre it was branded ‘Shedgate’, Leicester City Council told a family that it would need to remove its homemade eco bike shed as it was not “in keeping” with the Victorian character of the street, an aesthetic criticism numerous people pointed out did not seem to be applied to the plentiful on-street car parking that lines the road.

Following an outpouring of support for the family’s case, the city’s mayor even got involved to admit that planning officers had “got it wrong”, before it was triumphantly announced that the bike shed could stay.

> Cyclist threatened with €13 million fine and two years in prison over bike shed, forcing her to give up cycling

Now, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities hopes to streamline and possibly eliminate these long-running sagas by introducing changes that it says will “provide further flexibility to householders and growing families so that they can alter and extend their homes”.

“We are therefore consulting on changes to allow more householders to erect larger extensions, loft extensions, and make additions and alterations to the roof; and providing further flexibilities to permit bin and bike stores in front gardens,” the department said as part of its open consultation, launched in February.

According to the government, at the moment houses that only have front gardens or those that have limited external access to their rear gardens (such as homes in the middle of a row of terraced houses) are unable to install bin or bike stores in their front gardens under the current permitted development right in England.

“This can lead to ‘bin blight’,” the government says, “with wheelie bins dominating front gardens and impacting on the local amenity of residential streets.”

“We are proposing to allow bin and bike stores in front gardens under this permitted development right. To increase the number of households who can benefit from the right, we are proposing that bin and bike stores can also be constructed in front gardens of homes in article 2(3) land (which includes conservation areas, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the Broads, National Parks and World Heritage Sites),” the consultation added.

However, as this change would allow for modest development on a front elevation, the government added that the size of bike sheds or stores constructed in front gardens will be limited to a maximum two metres in width, one metre in depth, and 1.5m in height, in order to “minimise visual and amenity impacts”.

The consultation is set to run until 9 April.