Permitted
Development - October 1st
2008
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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