Permitted
Development - October 1st
2008
LATEST
NEWS...
The promised commercial Permitted
Development Rights has arrived.
We are just
getting to grips with its implications - we didn't want to but
we have already received numerous calls on the subject
& how its is beginning to affect commercial business
owners.
You can
read our initial thoughts & opinions on the new regime
& download the actual document as a pdf. This could
be a big growth area for some business owners who have been
previously refused Planning Permission to extend or alter their
existing premises especially in rural areas.
Click here to be taken to our new Commercial PD
section.
Updated appeals section - Latest
results & analysis for Certificate of Lawful
Development Appeals.
Just over
one years worth of Certificate of Lawful Development (C of
LDC) appeals (98 to date) are now forming some answers to the
ambiguities that existed over the wording of the latest PD
legislation. Regretfully, many of the Appeal Inspectors
also had contradicting assessments as well so this 'slippery
beast of an eel' is still writhing. Will the
Government put the boot in soon? - who knows - I doubt it for
the short term.
HOWEVER......The
'Communities and Local Government' Dept. have at last
been working on a guidance document on the PD
rules as how they interpret the myriad of ambiguities of
the 2008 changes to the PD legislation. This document is
only draft at the moment & was meant to be released
in Easter 2010 BUT the election came along &
everything stopped on the project. Apparently the DCLG
are not allowed to issue government documents during a
build up to an election. The question
is...will a new administration want to carry on with the
project & formally release this guidance document or
will it be 'kicked into the long grass' as they
say?
I have seen
this guidance document which was only released to around 8
select people / organisations for comments which was
subsequently leaked to myself. I have seen this guide
& I must say it is excellent & is precisely what the
building design profession, Planning Departments &
general public have been asking for - BUT YOU CAN'T
HAVE IT! until 'they' (The DCLG or a Minister)
decides to release it formally after the
election.
The extent
of their draft guidance & diagrams (some 44 pages) is the
result of many months hard work that simply goes to show how
wrong they got the wording of the new Permitted Development
rules. I had published this guidance document on this web
site for people to download & use for themselves but I was
contacted by the DCLG & asked to remove it as they said 'it
was never a formal document that officially did not yet
exist. Here is what they asked me to state in its
place.....
"CLG are now producing
detailed guidance on the application of the 2008 PD
rules. The link to CLG guidance that was previously
on this page has been removed as it was a link to an early
draft version of their proposed guidance. This
draft version of the guidance had not been published by CLG and
therefore has no formal status within the planning
system. The CLG have indicated, however, that the final
version of the PD guidance will be published "as soon as
possible". A new link to the guidance
will be available here once it is
published."
If ever
there was a need for a piece of government guidance - this is
it! It is such a shame as it is my opinion
that it will now never be released - (new broom sweeps
clean and all that). So we are all still left to the
various interpretations of what is legal without formal
Planning permission to each Local Council Planning & Legal
Departments.
However,
this document is now within the public domain & I feel sure
that if you were to google these words......
DCLG draft guidance on permitted
development you will probably find it
somewhere else. It is an excellent document &
everyone contemplating a PD extension or building
should read this first & use it as supporting
documentation for their own Certificate of Lawful
development application - Good luck!
Government Consultation on Permitted
Development Rights for Small Scale Renewable and Low
Carbon Energy Technologies
This
consultation which closed on 9 February 2010, seeks
views on permitted development rights for renewable
and low carbon technologies in domestic and
non–domestic settings. It also seeks views on
permitted development rights and deemed advertisement
consent in relation to electric vehicle charging
infrastructure.
Proposals
are for homeowners, developers and businesses to be
able to install their own on-site wind turbines and
air source heat pumps, without needing planning
permission.
The
relaxation of the planning rules would come with
strict caveats about size, noise levels, location and
the visual impact on an area.
Please
open
link for
further information and to respond to the
consultation visit.
WELCOME!
Welcome to
the Permitted
Development web site. Since October 1st 2008 new Planning
Legislation is in place that allows the home owner
certain rights and development benefits that they can
implement WITHOUT the need to obtain formal Planning
Permission. This site seeks to explore and discuss these
'PD' rights to determine what the benefits, issues and
pitfalls may be.
There is a lot of confusion at the
moment with regard to the new Permitted Development rights
legislation of the latest revision to
the 'Town and Country
Planning (general permitted development Order) (Amendment)
(No. 2) (England) Order 2008' being its
full title.
Not only was the legislation rushed at the last moment, it
is very poorly phrased and worded that will set the path for
the English Lawyers and Legal System to make huge fees over the
coming months possibly years until the Law courts have set
various precedents for Case Law.
Download
documents and diagrams of useful
Permitted
Development information

Why were the Permitted Development Rights revised?
Central Government for a long time has
tried to unlock the Local Planning System which is
predominantly made up of 'Householder' Planning applications
for domestic extensions, conversions or ancillary garden
buildings. Many of these planning applications find there way
to the Planning Inspectorate for the Appeal when an Application
has been refused by the Local Council. This causes delays,
costs. Certain academics at their 'White Hall Towers' have
decided that many of these 'low level' planning applications
cause unnecessary delays to the Planning System which
subsequently holds up a lot of the more 'grander' high profile
planning schemes. So something had to be done.
So how does this affect me?
Planning Permission is perhaps one of the most subjective
and wide ranging set of issues there is for a Local Authority
to consider. This leads to a variety of opinions, inconsistent
assessment of relevant Planning Policy and third party
interventions all seeking to have their say on what you (the
home owner) want to build.
Many of you may have already been 'through the mill'
experiencing these issues only to be denied formal Planning
Consent - perhaps even at appeal.
Therefore, assessing what you are legally able to build on
your property without formal Planning Approval is perhaps an
option you are now having to consider.
However, this process is not without its hurdles and
obstacles and the new PD legislation has certainly 'upset the
apple cart' for a certain number of people which are mainly the
Planners and disgruntled neighbours. Summary
of changes to the Permitted Development
QUOTE: "Bureaucracy defends the
status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its
status".
The previous Permitted Development
legislation had remained pretty much in tact for the last 20
years with only minor wording revisions - The main context
and assessment criteria remaining pretty much the
same.
This new phrasing of the Permitted development rights that
began on October 1st 2008 really is a fresh approach in most
instances with a whole new assessment criteria of what you can
build without Planning Permission that is generally better for
the home owner wishing to develop or extend than the previous
set of criteria and limitations that had a lot of Case Law as
back up for clarification of certain dubious elements of the
wording.
This new set of wording for the Permitted Development
criteria wipes away an awful lot of previous Case Law
precedents that will now be re-challenged in the Courts all
over again over the next few months if not years.
Having dealt with such Planning matters for over 25 years
now I can guarantee that the current wording will be revised
very shortly to cater for the 'White Hall cock ups' when the
Courts and Appeal systems have once again been overloaded or
some 'obtuse' MP in the Shires or Home Counties has his aspect
interfered with or garden overshadowed by a neighbour erecting
an extension or garden building in a totally unneighbourly way
without the need for obtaining Planning Permission first.
OBSERVATION: Looking at
what you can build without formal Planning Permission is
not just for the 'disillusioned home owner' who has just
been refused Planning Permission now seeking to locate a
'second best' position for their building
requirements.
It is more usual that those people wanting
to maximise their development potential for a site should
perhaps first consider what they can erect without formal
Planning Permission and to then develop a 'two prong' design
solution that seeks to obtain planning consent for one scheme
but then implements the PD scheme after successfully obtaining
Planning Permission for the other scheme. If you do this in the
opposite manner the Planners will likely 'means test' you for
what you have already achieved on the site and then consider
the 'accumulative effect' of the total scheme with what you are
applying for at Planning and a refusal will likely be the
result.
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