Pre Planning Application Example Drawings

Pre-Awarding Planning Communication: The Pros & Cons

Councils are advised to hash out schemes with cocky-builders and renovators prior to the formal planning process – but is pre-app all information technology's cracked up to be? Mike Dade investigates

Making a planning application for a cocky-build or other type of major projection can feel like a huge unknown. After all, very few of yous are likely to have significant experience in navigating the process, dealing with the council's determination makers and interpreting the nuances that can help in winning approval. Given all of this, it tin can be a sensible idea to seek pre-awarding advice earlier you go along.

Pre-app, as it'southward generally known, is a good style to test the planning waters before plunging in. And so what exactly is the pre-app process, what are the advantages and pitfalls, and how tin y'all tell when y'all should or shouldn't seek it?

The basics

Authorities guidance urges local authorities to promote pre-app meetings. There's even a section on planning application forms that asks whether you lot've sought prior advice from the quango – and what was said. It's not compulsory, only some planning departments are undoubtedly less helpful to those who haven't sought it and accept instead gone straight to making a full-diddled submission.

Unlike formal applications, where there's a mutual system to follow for the whole country, individual councils can determine their own pre-app processes. The amount of detail you're required to submit, cost of the consultation and length of time it takes to go an answer volition therefore vary considerably across unlike local authorities.

By and large, however, information technology involves submitting details of your proposed project to the council and receiving a letter back that comments on the relevant policies and bug. This will typically highlight any probable issues with the scheme and, sometimes, indicate what information volition be required aslope a formal awarding. The process can involve a meeting at the council's offices or your site – or it might simply be a written exchange.

Above: Betty Jarrett dreamed of transforming a mowhay barn, in the curtilage of a listed rectory, into a sustainable contemporary habitation – but wasn't sure the local council would support her plans. A pre-app discussion showed both the planning and conservation officers were hugely enthusiastic almost the scheme, even suggesting she incorporate more glass in her formal application

Procedure & toll

Almost pre-app consultation is complimentary for so-called householder proposals (extensions, alterations, garden buildings and near other changes to an existing building). Some councils offer a duty planning officer service – where you tin turn up and talk over your sketch ideas – or bookable consultations. Others insist on you lot filling in a short form and sending it over for comment, forth with a location plan, other sketches and perchance photographs.

For larger schemes, such as new houses or conversions, at that place'southward normally a fee to exist paid. In some circumstances this can amount to as much as £500-£600, which is considerably more the cost of making a formal planning application.

The corporeality of information sought by councils varies, too. You might simply need to submit a location plan, sketches of what you want to build and a few photos – or you may exist required to provide full drawings and supporting information, such as tree reports, structural surveys (for conversions) and and then on.

There's divergence in terms of how long information technology takes to secure pre-app advice, besides. If your council gives y'all the option of a meeting, this may add together cost and stretch out the process. Furthermore, where local government are busy deciding on formal planning applications, pre-app response times tend to lag. They can range from as petty equally a week or ten days right upwardly to several months, in the worst cases.

A pre-app response is usually given in the form of a letter, but it could just comprise notes taken at a contiguous consultation. The amount and quality of comment varies, merely it'southward of import to note that the advice will e'er be given with a proviso that information technology'south the opinion of a particular planning officer; not the council.

So you cannot guarantee that the response will exist the local potency's formal view, should you continue to brand an identical formal awarding. This is a get-out clause to allow officers to change their minds afterwards; possibly in the calorie-free of feedback from consultees – such equally neighbours, the parish council or the highways authority.

For this projection in the East Midlands, there was no need to present a design at the pre-app stage – only initial consultations did lead to the planning officer specifically requesting a contemporary scheme, which was duly delivered past Julian Owen Associates Architects

The benefits

Pursuing the pre-app process can be specially helpful where the planning officer adopts the attitude of looking for solutions rather than building barriers. If your proposals are met with general support, then all well and good; and you tin can then brand your formal application with a loftier degree of confidence.

By the aforementioned token, if there are issues – for case the officer is unhappy with the design or thinks the layout might impact on neighbours – positive suggestions every bit to how to overcome these problems tin can be actually helpful.

Adjusting a projection to accost such concerns gives the planning officeholder a degree of interest and ownership of your scheme. Working co-operatively with them to notice mutually acceptable compromises can result in the officer beingness more supportive of your build than they might otherwise have been.

Likewise every bit feedback on the scheme itself, you should ask for confirmation of what documents are required with the final submission. Knowing now tin assist avoid delays at the validation stage of a formal application (the admin stage prior to the decision-making procedure).

If the council has any requirements for fiscal contributions, such as Section 106 charges, so the corporeality and payment details should all be confirmed during the pre-app discussions. Over again, this helps avert unpleasant surprises at a later stage.

The pitfalls

Where pre-app advice costs more than making a planning application, its do good is debateable. If you lot make a formal submission and then discover the planning officer wants you lot to ameliorate it, you can ever withdraw, improve and resubmit – taking advantage of provisions that allow yous a free go at this stage.

This enables y'all to make a similar application, within 12 months of withdrawal or refusal, without paying an additional fee. Formal applications are field of study to consultation, so arguably the feedback you get at this stage is more reliable than that yous'd receive via an initial meeting.

Taking on a pre-app consultation can actually show to be a hindrance if yous're committed to a detail design and do not intend to change it. In this scenario, seeking feedback risks the planning officer asking – and expecting – amendments to the scheme that you lot're not prepared to brand.

Philip and Emma Walters took pre-app advice from Due south Northants Council on how much larger their cocky-build project could be compared to the bungalow it was to supersede – gaining support for a 135m2 one-and-a-half-storey home with four dormer windows. Prototype: Marker Welsh

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If such changes haven't been worked into the plans when you lot come up to apply for consent, the officer may well be disappointed that their suggestions haven't been taken into account. This can create a negative attitude towards your project. To counter this possibility, always explicate in your formal application why any pre-app recommendations haven't been followed.

The underlying problem with pre-app consultation, however, is that information technology tin can't be totally relied upon. No matter how detailed and helpful it might appear, bear in mind that there's nothing preventing the council from taking a very dissimilar view when your concluding application is made.

1 potential reason for this scenario is that a different planning officer might bargain with your formal submission to the one who took care of your pre-app. Another is that the decision on your scheme might in fact be made at committee – and the presiding members don't always follow the officer's advice.

Furthermore, at pre-app you'll be guided towards what that particular officer would like to meet congenital. Simply this may not be the same as what they'd be prepared (or obligated) to accept in a formal application.

Professional person input

If y'all're taking pattern advice from an architect or intend to hire a planning consultant, you might recollect that pre-app advice from the council is unnecessary. On these matters, still, there are many areas of stance and interpretation – and these tend to be significant elements in the controlling process.

However well qualified and experienced an advisor might exist, they cannot guarantee that a planning officer will share every aspect of their judgement about a project. For professionals, the pre-app procedure allows them to suggest on whether amendments sought by an officeholder are reasonable – and on the pros and cons of ignoring or following whatever suggestions.

Knowing what objections might be made enables a more robust statement to be made in back up of the formal submission. This in turn will provide a solid base of operations for an appeal, should the initial awarding fail. Used wisely, so, a pre-app can be a handy tool in your tactical armory as you strive to gain consent for the best possible design for your individual plot.

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Source: https://www.self-build.co.uk/pre-application-planning-advice-pros-cons/

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