Countdown To Success

Top tips to ensure you clinch planning approval

Once you have a project in mind, the next step is to secure planning permission. There are scary stories about how difficult this is and how long it takes but in reality it should be a reasonably straightforward process.

The right scheme: Your architect should do their homework and know your council’s local development plan, documentation and all its finer details. They should know in advance what size, style, etc., the council will accept in terms of an extension. Alternatively, they will stick scrupulously within the limits for Permitted Development.

The right kind of application: All applications are now done online through the Planning Portal. There is guidance to help you choose the right application form, from the following:

• Permitted Development (PD) means obtaining a Certificate of Lawfulness for the Proposed Development to confirm works do not require planning permission.

• Outline Planning Permission Applications look to establish whether the scale and nature of a proposed development would be acceptable.

• For Full Planning Permission, there is a ‘Householder’ form for domestic schemes that exceed the Permitted Development criteria. Remember there is no Permitted Development for flats.

• If your home is in a Conservation Area then ‘heritage consent’ is needed. You must select the Conservation or Listed option when starting. You will need either a separate Heritage Statement or include this as part of a more comprehensive Design & Access Statement.

The right paperwork: The first hurdle your application needs is validation. This can be three weeks or more after you send it in, and the start date gets delayed if they find a gap. Each council has a validation checklist, so make sure you have the site area, postcode, flood risk zone (and a flood strategy if it’s in ‘zone 3’). Also permitted development forms ask, ‘why is this PD?’ so have the answer ready.

Attachments regularly required are:

• A Location Plan based on the Ordnance Survey map at a scale of 1:1250 and a larger scale ‘Site Plan’ at 1:500.

• A Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) Form 1.

• A full set of recent photos of the house from all sides and of any neighbours’ windows that face the site

If there are trees close by, you will need a brief report on how these are to be protected.

• In London, you will also need to provide a Fire Safety Strategy (even for the smallest works), the Land Registry title number and whether your home has an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC).

• Household applications shouldn’t need a Design & Access Statement, but often this is the best way to explain how your scheme meets the council’s policies.

• A full set of drawings of the existing property and site and another for the proposed changes, noting what the new external materials will be. All drawings need the scale and paper size noted, a scale bar that can be measured and a North Point – which is often missed off and delays the validation. Drawings of all four elevations are required. If your scheme is Permitted Development show the written dimensions for the key sizes ie. depth of extension, height to eaves etc.

• Finally check your drawings can be printed out to an accurate scale.

Avoiding objections: All applications are published on your council’s website, backed up with letters to neighbours and/or notices on the street. For a full planning application allow a three-week window for comments.

Objections suggest that this unpopular application can be refused and so your application is heard by the Planning Applications Committee, which can cause significant delays. Make sure there is nothing to complain about and talk to neighbours early and often.

The target for most decisions is eight weeks, but almost all planning teams are short staffed and few applications are decided early. There is no point in chasing them, you just need to be patient.

Source: Architect Your Home