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The extent of their draft guidance & diagrams (some 44 pages) is the result of many months hard work that simply goes to show how wrong they got the wording of the new Permitted Development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 

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.