UKH

Probably a couple of times a year (usually when it stops raining) I get this strong urge to sell up, buy some woodland and start building a off-grid traditional log cabin using logs harvested from the woods.

There are loads of diaries of people doing this on YouTube in Canada and America and it looks amazing. What a life.

I'm then quickly reminded that here in the UK, first, you would never get planning permission to build in the woods, and even if you did, building regs would require double skin walls to achieve the insulation amongst other compromises.

I get why the rules are there, we don't want houses popping up in every wood, and we don't want new builds to be energy intensive, but it's such a shame that a way of life can't exist here in the UK. 

Just for a bit of fun, these are the rules I think should be introduced as a balanced compromise:

1. Woodland homes must not be visible form any public right of way (not sure how that would work in Scotland).
2. They must be off grid and heated only using wood from the forest.
3. They must be built only using wood sourced from the forest without removing say 10% of the trees, unless a used cabin is purchased.
4. Must be self built. Can't just pay a contractor to build it for you. You can hire help. Open to interpretation of course.
5. If you sell the land, cabin must be demolished (you can sell it as a kit). Inheritance should be allowed.

Hard to know if the above would limit their construction to a tolerable amount, but it would stop them being used as a commodity.

There was a campaign group trying to get something along these lines off the ground in Scotland. They got quite a bit of press about a decade ago. Not sure how much success they had.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-23036096

https://www.thousandhuts.org/

You are overlooking the planning exceptions that exist for agricultural/land management accomodation for people who need to be on site with their agribusiness.

This was how the slightly leftfeild charcoal burners and tree nursery owner/operators I used to know swung building and living in their woodland cabin and yerts.

I think I saw him on Grand Designs or a similar show. I have looked into similar ideas, but ultimately I wouldn't want to give up my career to live in the woods so it wouldn't work for me.

The other scenario is that it would be a great option for early retirement, again, wouldn't work with current rules.

Interesting, somehow hadn't come across these.

Look up the carbeth hutters

As Luke90 says there does seem to be a semi successful project in Scotland.

The obvious problem is how quickly those rules would be gamed and also potentially negative impact on the woodlands especially with 3. If its a old plantation then easy but not so much with native woodland.

Whilst a bit more protected you would risk ending up where canal boats have now.

The tricky thing with point 3 is it's almost impossible to regulate. I guess planning could be restricted to plots where the wood is large enough to support the build and benefit from the thinning, or could be offset with planting new trees etc.

For every log used you have to plant 10 trees for example.

Have you never watched 'The Evil Dead'? Any cabin in the woods is bound to attract flesh-eating demons. Don't do it!

I think a key difference between Canada and the UK is that their population density is 4 per km2 while ours is 280 per km2. Our total population is about 175% of theirs, which is a pretty wild statistic. Their climate also means that this sort of thing is rather more self-limiting than in the UK.
 

We’re crammed in like sardines in comparison and have got precious little woodland as it is. At the least, I’d add in another restriction that building in ancient woodland is off the table.

I like this proposal, suitable plots will attract huge premiums meaning the rich can build their darling little play things and the rest of us can gaze at the photos in Tatler from our over-dense hovels in the city.
Then they can be passed on to their undeserving off springs to do the same.
What could be more traditionally British?

If you ever plan to reside in it you need to consider sewage and water supply. Wood last centuries, but it needs to be kept dry, so foundations of type and heating, which if you aren't around to feed a stove all winter means electricity. You can avoid the heating element with ventilation, like 3 sided farm buildings, but it wouldn't be much of a cabin then. 

Think it's nicknamed Ben's law after the grand designs programme. 

Certainly doable if you want to make a life of it. 

I looked in to but decided boat life was preferable, which I did for several years, but swallowed the anchor and bought in to the awful mortgage merry go round. 

And the places where people build cabins are even less densely populated.  [written as a Canadian who has helped build remote log cabins and lived off grid in one for a couple years]

Suggestions for avoiding this?

How about a limit on how much can be spent on the build meaning that it has to be mostly self built. You can have all the money in the world, but if you have to spend a year in the woods with a chainsaw to achieve it a you don't have the budget to hire someone you're probably going to pass.

I'm being silly now, but also a rule that if you are employed to build a home for someone and you receive over the budget allowed you have a right to claim it if you can prove it.

Indeed. I'd quite like a few new housing estates to be levelled and re-wooded.

Might be of interest (Scotland).

https://pressat.co.uk/media/uploads/5a84a6a5c342fa4bb185d3b600ed1f14.pdf

Making sure it can only be used as primary residence would help but the fundamental problem is that in order to relax some regulations you have to enforce a load more so there is no net increase in “freedoms”.

You are a risking our wild spaces for a tiny group of people and it won’t necessarily be the same group of people you envision or want living there.

You do have to be quite committed and it helps if you are genuinely a charcoal burning or tree growing crusty/hippy. I knew two couples in North Wales doing it in the 2000s and it looked bloody hard work. Bringing up two kids whilst living in yurts in the woods is quite something.

A few years ago I did some work with an architect who was trying to use the planning provision to build a mega pad next to his kids 'hobby' Christmas tree farm in a green belt location outside Edinburgh. Possibly unsurprisingly he got knocked back.

As long as his hut doesn't have a cellar then Monty should be fine

Up here in the north east of England, there are various sites with round log cabins on them - both dedicated sites and static caravan sites.  Many are tourist rentals and are competitively priced with other sorts of accommodation.  They’re “engineered” cabins in the sense that all logs (all heart wood) are rounded to the same profile by machine, chinking is felt sheet, walls include machined out cable voids etc.  The sites are also quite densely populated, it’s very far from a whole log cabin in Oregon etc.  Still, I find them remarkably nice places to stay in - a really good vibe, really good temperature regulation, the round log profile forces a spartan use of walls.  We’re off to stay in one this summer in the heart of the north pennies and I can’t wait.  There’s a company building a bunch in a corner of the local forestry commission site and I think that’s great - lots more people get to experience holidaying in a log cabin.  There is a lot more scope for sensitively managed sites as part of managed forestry.  It all relieves pressure for converting family homes to tourist rentals as well.

If planning rules and finances allowed I’d love to replace my 17th century pile of highly porous sandstone with a whole log cabin.

But yes, the romantic “isolated cabin in the woods” is an absolute non starter in England/Wales due to population density.

Now, what I really want to do is build a cordwood cabin, that can use an eclectic mix of logs so much easier to source hyper locally, and it’s a great effect…

What are the rules on waste disposal ? Also are we talking purely hunting/scavenging and home administered health care ?

I wouldn't be interested in a fully self sufficient lifestyle. Wheelie bin at the end of the drive and food from the shop for me.

My wife's nephew has one (a cabin in a forest). The romance wears off very fast, hot, windless, stifling and full of insects in summer. Dank and miserable the rest of the year and nothing to see but tree trunks, you can feel the depression increasing by the day.

eat the rich should do it

Sorry, what does that mean?!

It just opens the floodgates to more and more 2nd homes. Every piece of Cornish/Cumbria/Northumberland woodland occupied by Tarquins and Guineviers from the city. The self build idea takes employment away from the local economy too.

Nice idea, with some poor consequences.

i've browsed woods4sale a few times and some woods are quite isolated. a small hut for woodland maintenance shouldn't need planning permission?

i'm sure there will be a few havens out there under the radar- i know of a community in the woods that would surprise you with it's location..

There's quite a community in Suffolk a hangover from the anti nuke bomb days

Could you build a nice shepherds hut and take it to your woods.

A mate did this in Hampshire 15-20 years back for somewhere affordable to live while his wife and he retrained. Bought a little packet of woodland, built a strawbale house on a big agricultural flatbed hoping to argue it was a temporary structure or a caravan. Someone complained and the council eventually made him take it down but the appeals process dragged on long enough to see them both through their training. There are probably better loopholes to exploit but it was never supposed to be permanent.

jk

This.

Charcoal burning is the way for this sort of living. I've thought about it too, 20 acres or so of Welsh woodland, marvellous.

(edit: albeit romantic nonsense with no consideration of the grim realities! If I, or anyone, was going to do it it looks like a full time commitment incompatible with holding down a job elsewhere)

A related issue, but there is a company who buy up blocks of wood and then sell them off in small 2-3 ha plots. Recent high profile case of one of these blocks being used as a glorified landfill. LA and EA were aware but took forever to take action. I think it's taken a lot of pressure to raise it's profile. if you google it,  It's Hoads Wood.

For all sorts of reasons, this Balkanisation of woodlands is a really bad idea