Applying For Planning Permission

Who do I apply to for planning permission?

If you need planning permission, the people that would be responsible for that decision would be the local authority that covers the area in which you live. However, there are a certain circumstances where national parks have their own planning authority and they take over the duties of a local authority. They cover a wider area and more than one authority, so you need to apply to them. It's always someone local to you, and your first call would be the local authority to check that they are the people you need to apply to.

What documents should I include in my application?

If you're going to make a planning application, there are certain key documents that you need. All planning proposals need to be accompanied by the relevant planning fee and there is guidance on how much you need to pay depending on what it is that you're applying for. All applications need a site location plan to identify where the property is and what the ownership position is of that property. You need to have ownership certificates, so if you're not the owner of the property, you need to have served notice on anyone else who has an ownership interest. You need to declare whether any of the property is part of an agricultural holding, and then you need the plans which illustrate the proposals. They could be plans of the existing buildings that are on the site and plans of the proposed buildings that are on the site. All of the plans; the site plan, the location plan and the plans of the proposals themselves need to be to a recognized scale.

Is it best to have an architect help me submit my plans?

When you come to apply for planning permission, depending on what you want to do, you may need help. So if it was a simple proposal, it could be that you could do a simple lined drawing that illustrates what your property is, and what you plan to do with it and that would be perfectly acceptable to the local planning authority. It would be clear, the kitchen extension, the conservatory, the dormer, and you would not need anyone to help. The more complicated it gets, the more you might need help. Some simple buildings, somebody who is a building technician may be able to help and you will see, probably in your local newspaper, people offering those sorts of services and they may cover building regulations as well. The more you get involved in complicated matters, the more you might need to improve on your expertise. A planning consultant might be somebody that you need to engage. An architect might be someone else. You may need a structural engineer depending on the complexity of it. If you are altering a large area of landscape, you may need a landscape consultant. There may be some noise issues, then you need a noise expert. There could be ecological issues involved in the land so you need somebody who could do bat surveys, or owls, or slow-worms, or badgers. It will depend on the circumstances of where the proposal is as to who the development team needs to be.

What is a 'Design and Access Statement'?

Last year the government decided that outline planning appliations were too restricted in terms of the amount of information that was provided. It was possible to put in simple site plan, a simple sketch proposal and say, that's roughly what i have in mind, can i have planning permission, I'll give you all the details later as part of another application.Design and Access Statements were introduced in August of last year to make things clearer. So a local Planning Authority in deciding whether to give outline planning permission can tell quite clearly what the proposals were going to be. And there is a set of criteria that you need to answer and send that statement with your planning application to explain how your going to get access to it, what the building is likely to look like, what has goverened the way you've approached the design for the proposals. And there's a checklist in there and you need to follow that.

How much will the planning application fee be?

Planning applications start with a basic fee of £265. But depending on the size of the proposals, the fee may build from there. So, if you were a major housing developer putting in lots of housing, you're paying £265 per house until a certain threshold, and then the fee is capped at that level. So, if you're putting up more houses, it wouldn't necessarily generate more fees. But that's the basis on which it works.

Can I apply to do more than one piece of work on the same application?

If you are extending a house and perhaps putting in a conservatory at the back or may be wanting to construct a porch at the front, it is perfectly possible to put those two proposals on the one application. You provide drawings of what the house looks like now and how it would be proposed to look in future and simply fill in one planning application. You may have a situation where the authority is perfectly comfortable with one of those proposals and not the other and either you have to change it to something they could support or maybe at point withdraw it or submit it as a separate proposal because it is quite clear the authority intends to refuse permission and you may want to appeal it. So you get permission there, you know that they are happy with and practically you withdraw for the alleged discussion on that they are not happy with. But in principle both parts can go in the same application.

What else should I send in with my application?

When you submit a planning application, you are obliged to not only fill in a form, but you also have to declare whether you own the site or someone else owns it. If someone else owns it, you need to say that you've served notice on them to alert them to the fact that you intend to apply for planning permission. If it happens to be a part of an agricultural tenancy, anyone who has an interest in the land, such as the tenant farmer, you may need to notify them as well. And then you need plans of the proposals that you've got in mind.

What scale do any plans need to be?

If you're submitting plans with an application, the site plans and the application plan needs to be to a recognized scale and most applicants use ordinance survey sheets and they come at a scale of 1 to 1250 or 2500. They're obtainable from the local authority very often or from ordinance survey offices. The planning portal has access to site plans as well. You can pay your fee and download them from the portal. As to the proposals themselves, they need to be to a recognized scale and the common scales are 1 to 100 and 1 to 200 and 1 to 50. So, it's appropriate to the level of detail that you're trying to show. So, if you had to put a section through the building, then you may be using 1 to 50 as your scale, but if it was how it might appear in the street scene and the neighbouring properties, then you might be using 1 to 200.

Do I have to own the property to make an application?

If you're going to apply for permission, and you don't own the property, it is perfectly possible to continue to apply, as long as you serve notice on the owner. It may be that you're the tenant of the property on a long lease. And, in those circumstances, you wouldn't have to serve notice on the freeholder of the property. You would have rights to apply on your own. You may be a prospective purchaser. In which case, you would serve notice on the current owner, and you'd indicate that you'd done that as part of your application.

Do I have to own the freehold of the property to make an application?

If you intend to apply for permission and you are just the lease holder and not the free holder, it may be that your lease is sufficiently long that you stand in place of the free holder. If you have part of a 99 year lease, you wouldn't have to serve notice on the free holder, but if you have a short lease - a license for a year or two or maybe as much as 5 years - then you are more likely to need to serve notice on the free holder. However, that doesn't stop you from making an application.

Can I apply if I have the leasehold?

If you're a leaseholder and you wish to apply for planning permission, there's nothing to stop you from doing so. Depending on the length of your lease will determine whether you need to serve notice on the freeholder as part of that process. But even if you're a short leaseholder, if you wanted to make the investment in the property, and possibly look to extend your lease as part of a separate discussion, then it may be very sensible to apply for planning permission before you enter into those negotiations.

Who benefits from planning permission being granted?

If planning permission is granted, the permission goes with the land. This means that somebody who has got planning permission might then sell it to someone else. They don't have to carry out the development themselves, and if you are the leaseholder of the property it still runs with the property. If you were to surrender your lease, the freehold of the property could implement the planning permission as long as it is within the prescribed time. All planning permissions have a limited life. You may be able to renew them if they have expired but you do need to start work within that time period.

What types of application are there?

Plenty of applications come in a number of shapes and sizes. If you just wanted to establish the principle, you might apply for something in outline. Once you know what the detail is, you've got detail applications. You may want to simply change the use of the property through a change of use application. If you've been given a consent, but some of the conditions require you to come back and get more details approved, then you need the reserved matters applications. If you've got a listed building then you may need to get a listed buildings application. So you can see that the planning authorities at any time are dealing with quite a range of applications. They may have applications to lop and top trees that are protected. So the tree preservation order is going through the process at the same time. They're geared up to deal with a variety of things.

What are 'reserved matters'?

When a planning consent is granted, sometimes the local planning authority impose conditions. They may not at the time have all that they need in terms of materials, landscaping, access arrangements, sound insulation measures - anything that's appropriate to that proposal. They might list these as one of the planning conditions, and they call them as a collective group, 'the reserve matters'. The applicant needs to get those approved, submit details on them, and get them approved before they start work on site, or sometimes it's before they first used the building. It depends on how the condition is framed, but they're called 'reserved matters' . Other conditions simply run with the development. If the applicant applied for two chalets, the condition might say "No more than two chalets." That simply stands there as one of the planning conditions and so there's no need to make any summation.

What happens after the application has been submitted?

Once the local planning authority have received a planning application, they need to check first to see that all of the documents are there. They register it as a formal application . They tend to then gather them together maybe a week at a time and they would publish lists of all the new applications. They will assign case officers to each of the applications, depending where they are and how they divide up their responsibilities within the authority, and they will start to notify surrounding profiteers that they have received a proposal. They will send out what they call a neighbor notification to those people who are identified, who are already joined. Depending on the proposals, it may also be necessary to notify the press. So, there may be two forms of notice. One would be the list of applications often seen in the free newspapers and statutory applications. There is a similar notification that goes to neighbors that is of prominence. You need to do this by this date, which is usually twenty-one days from the date that it is issued.