Permitted Development Consultation - Oct. 1st 2008.

Who do you consult for initial advice on permitted development. The Planning Department, we are, told is your first stop regarding advice and help. However, Permitted Development consultation advice can be a bit of a lottery regarding the quality and efficiency of the advice from Planning Departments nationwide.

Each Planning Authority will have its own administration arrangements for dealing with permitted development consultations. The helpful ones will offer good specific verbal initial advice usually from a Duty Planning Officer who can be seen without appointment direct at the council offices.

Others will refuse to offer informal opinions and advise and simply refer you to the formal Certificate of Lawful Development route where you will probably need to engage a design agent for the preparation of scaled plans and pay a fee.

Other Planning Departments used to improving standards and try to see the public as customers and are on some form of customer care scheme / award / charter mark etc. will offer a variety of sources of information for your permitted development consultation from formal written responses to casual verbal replies. Much of the written responses will require a fee though but they do usually adhere to time scales which is useful.

However, please bare in mind that the quality of the Planners advice is very much reliant upon the quality of information you provide. The more detailed an explanation you can provide in sketch format with accurate, truthful and clear descriptions of your intended works the better the quality of advice you will receive to your permitted development consultation.

Download a pdf guide for Permitted Development consultation guidance...

 Changes to Permitted Development: Consultation Paper 2 - Permitted Development Rights for Householders

Please remember though that without a thorough planning history check on your particular site, the permitted development consultation advice will still be informal and, as such unreliable. This is because many sites have had their permitted development rights removed when they were first granted planning permission. Therefore the formal Certificate of Lawful Development route is the suggested way even if it does cost you more money initially by using a skilled Building Designer / Planning Agent who will also offer an opinion that the scheme is indeed permitted development.