Commercial Permitted Development Rights.

A personal view..... 

Well here we go then.  At last, some business owners get a chance to alter or extend their premises free of Planning Control under a brand new set of Permitted Development rights.  This could be a great opportunity for many business owners previously denied Planning Permission especially in rural areas.

The problems many business owners faced even where Planning Permission was granted was the extent of the conditions or extra controls that the relevant Planning Department imposed upon them.

If there is one thing any business needs while either growing their business in response to demand or simply evolving or changing in order to survive, is speed & flexibility in all areas.  The constraints of Planning Permission & the system the have created have never responded well to these two issues.  There is a lot of 'planning speak' & so called 'sympathetic council jargon' out there in the form of local planning policy that seeks to be 'in tune' with the modern day business needs, but the reality of what happens on the council 'shop floor' is often at odds with these official 'aspirations'. Lip service is a term that can spring to mind.

The new Permitted Development rights for commercial sites may now have addressed this issue to some degree.  However, as with the residential property PD rights, its all down to interpretation of the new wording & yet again there will now be a period of around 18 months while the PD criteria is tested through the council Certificate of Lawful Development applications, enforcement procedures & the eventual appeals to the Planning Inspectorate.

While the residential PD is now beginning to settle into some sort of established principals for interpretation purposes, this new commercial PD will no doubt reignite some of the passion & stupidity already experienced from building / business owners dealing with Council interpretations of how to implement the new commercial Permitted Development.

Exciting times ahead I think. 

Download documents and diagrams of useful

Permitted Development information

Download the actual statutory instrument for commercial permitted development rights.