Steel buildings for Devon
Machinery stores, livestock buildings, workshops and industrial units across the county. Tell us roughly what you need and you get engineered drawings and a price for the building, plus an honest figure for the base underneath it — and a straight answer on who you actually apply to, which in Devon is not one council.
Who you apply to in Devon
This is the part that catches people who have built in Cornwall before, or who have read a guide written for somewhere else. Cornwall has one planning authority for the whole county. Devon has several, and which one you deal with depends entirely on where the holding is.
Most of the county sits with the district, borough and city councils, each determining its own applications. Plymouth and Torbay are unitary authorities and handle everything inside their own boundaries. And both National Parks have their own planning authority.
Dartmoor and Exmoor
Inside a National Park, the National Park Authority is responsible for all planning matters — not your district council. If your holding is in one, that is who the application goes to.
It matters beyond the address on the envelope. Inside a National Park the Part 6 rights are not taken away, but the prior approval procedure bites more widely — every extension or alteration goes in front of the authority rather than only the significant ones. With the two National Parks and five National Landscapes between them, a landscape designation covers a great deal of Devon, so it is worth knowing which one you are in.
None of that is a reason not to build. It is a reason to find out which authority covers your holding and what your rights actually are before you order steel, rather than after — the same advice we give in Cornwall, for a rather more complicated reason.
Timescales are worth checking too. The figure everyone quotes is 28 days for the authority to say whether prior approval is needed. Authorities publish their own positions — East Devon, for one, states a 42-day statutory time limit on a prior notification. Work to what your own authority publishes.
A summary, not planning advice. The legislation is Part 6 of Schedule 2 to the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015, as amended. Confirm your position with the authority that covers your own site.
What are you looking to put up?
Each one covers what the building is, how it gets sized, where you stand on planning, and what the base underneath it comes to.
Machinery store
Clear span, no posts in the way, and a floor that works harder than most. What it costs to put up and what it costs underneath.
Grain store
Walls that get pushed from the inside, a floor that takes a loader, and a roof that rains on the crop if you get it wrong.
Livestock building
Housing that has to ventilate, drain and be scraped out. Falls, channels and the slurry rules — plus the 400 metre planning trap.
Farm workshop
Room to get a machine in and work all round it, with a floor specced for the jack rather than the tractor.
Hay barn
Open sides, air through it, and the lightest slab on the farm — if it needs one at all.
General purpose building
The shed that ends up doing everything. How to spec a building for a use you have not decided yet.
Stables and arenas
Stable blocks, American barns and indoor arenas. The same steel frame as a farm building — and a completely different planning position.
Industrial unit
Workshops, warehousing, trade counters and light manufacturing. Full planning, full Building Regs, and a yard that often costs more than the shed.
Grain store, equestrian, silage clamp, industrial unit — not written up yet, priced the same way.Tell us what you need. And whichever it is, it can be builtcold rolled or hot rolled, which changes the price, the lead time and the foundations.
The base does not change at the border
A frame quote covers the frame, the cladding, the doors and — if you ask for it — erection. The site strip, the cut and fill, the stone, the slab, the drainage and the access track are groundworks, and they are a separate trade on a separate bill whether you buy them from the supplier or from a contractor down the road.
You may well be handed a foundation drawing showing what the slab and the pads have to be. That is worth having, and it is not a quantity. It does not tell you how much concrete you are ordering, how much stone, how much topsoil is coming off the field or how many lorry loads are leaving it. The calculator does, and it does not care which county you are in — it is geometry, worked from your dimensions and what your ground is doing.
Common questions
- Do you cover the whole of Devon?
- Yes — north and south coast, Dartmoor and Exmoor fringes, the Culm, the South Hams, the Blackdowns and everything between. Agricultural, industrial and commercial buildings all get handled the same way, and the supplier who prices your frame works across the South West rather than out of one town.
- Who do I apply to for a farm building in Devon?
- Not one authority, which is the difference from Cornwall. Most of Devon is covered by district, borough and city councils, each determining its own applications. Plymouth and Torbay are unitary authorities dealing with everything inside their own boundaries. And Dartmoor National Park Authority and Exmoor National Park Authority are responsible for all planning matters within the National Parks — so if your holding is inside one, that is who you apply to, not your district council. Find which authority covers your holding before you do anything else, because it changes the forms, the timescale and who you are talking to.
- Can I use permitted development for a building on Dartmoor or Exmoor?
- The rights are not removed, which is what most people assume. What changes inside a National Park is that the prior approval procedure applies more widely — to every extension or alteration of a building rather than only to significant ones — so more of what you do needs putting in front of the authority first. The authority is the National Park, not your district council. Establish your position with them before you commit to a frame, because the route and the timescale may not be the one you were expecting.
- How long does prior approval take in Devon?
- The figure usually quoted is 28 days for the authority to confirm whether prior approval is needed. Individual authorities publish their own timescales and validation requirements though — East Devon, for example, publishes a 42-day statutory time limit for determining a prior notification. Check the published position of the authority that actually covers your holding rather than working to a number you read somewhere general, and allow for the fact that they may come back asking for more detail.
- Is the groundworks calculator any use in Devon?
- It is county-agnostic. Concrete volumes, sub-base tonnages, topsoil strip and muck-away loads are geometry — they come from the size of your building and what your ground is doing, not from which side of the Tamar you are on. What does change is what you find when you dig, which is why it asks about the ground rather than assuming.
Get a price for your building in Devon
Rough span and length is enough to start with. You get engineered drawings and a price, including the pad foundation sizes, and every enquiry gets a reply the same day.