The Future of the British Garden
Furniture in Fashion research finds that the British garden is now planned like a floorplan, with households zoning the plot for eating, sitting and storage rather than buying one set to serve everything. Our analysis argues that the decisive purchases have changed order: shelter, storage and lighting determine how much a garden is used, because they extend the usable hours into the evening and the usable weeks into spring and autumn. The report explains why storage should be treated as infrastructure, how the permitted development rules for outbuildings, raised decking and boundary fences shape what a plot can hold, and why paving rather than household size governs seating capacity. A specification table matches common outdoor set sizes to the paved area we advise once a 90 cm chair pull out allowance is applied, alongside guidance on aluminium, hardwood and all weather rattan under UK rainfall. It uses no proprietary sales data and no survey fieldwork....