What is Pre-application advice, and do I need it?
A pre-application is essentially a submission made to a local planning authority before a planning application is prepared, to ask whether planning permission is needed. How much that planning application will cost? How long will it take? What will it need to consist of? And, ultimately, the Council’s review and opinion on whether a planning permission will likely occur. Pre-application advice offers significant potential to improve proposals presented to local planning authorities, therefore increasing the likelihood of success and reducing the likelihood of delays at the validation stage.

Where can I get it from?
You can get pre-application advice from your local planning authority or from consultants in the private sector.

How much will it cost?
Our PreApp service will cost £125.00 plus VAT for a householder pre-application or £195.00 plus VAT for a full pre-application. Local planning authorities set their own cost bands so there is no set cost, and this also applies to private consultants.

How long does it take?
PreApp aims to provide your tailored pre-application advice within 3 working days, albeit that sometimes it will take longer. Unlike with planning applications, local planning authorities do not have a set deadline to provide pre-application advice and the process can often take months and be completely dependent on their caseload.

How do I know what type of application I need?
The 2 main types of planning application we cover on PreApp are:

Householder – An application specifically for householders that want to carry out work to their existing home or garden area, such as extensions, conservatories, garage or loft conversions, dormer windows, garages, car ports and outbuildings. This application is to be used for proposals to alter or enlarge an existing single house, including works within the boundary/garden. For structural alterations or additions to buildings, including any works relating to a flat then a full planning application should be submitted.

Full Planning – An application where full details of the proposed development need to be submitted which detail the site and the planned work, for example, new dwelling(s), most non-householder developments, and changes of use. Development includes building, engineering or other works, in, on, over or under land, or the making of any material change in the use of any buildings or other land, such as any works relating to a flat, a change in the number of dwellings, a change in use to part or all of the property to non-residential and anything outside the garden of the property.

Please note that for large scale or major development applications, which is where proposed development would exceed 10 or more dwellings or the site has an area of 0.5 hectares or more, we advise speaking to our associated town planning consultants NextPhase.

Can I just use Permitted Development Rights?
Maybe in relation to householder applications, however statistically most householder plans step beyond what can be secured by Permitted Development and require planning permission.

Wouldn’t it be easier to just talk to my local council?
This PreApp service was created in direct response to the numerous issues faced by members of the public trying to access pre-application advice from local planning authorities, namely…

• It is not a statutory requirement for a local planning authority and therefore is not governed by any requirement to meet a certain standard.

• The Council do not have to provide a response within a certain timeframe, albeit they always identify that they will.

• The Council set their own cost bands associated with the work and it is not governed by an ability to appeal should you find the information dissatisfactory or to gain costs back if you think that the information prepared is not to the required standard.

• The fee that is paid for a pre-application service, which is often very expensive, don’t offer the same level of protection for service.

• Pre-application responses are often extremely slow, they don’t meet the expected timeframes promised by local planning authorities, the cost of the service is often extremely expensive and most importantly the quality of the response is often an issue.

• The most frequently found feedback towards a pre-application response is often surprise at the lack of detail associated with the pre-application response received from local planning authorities. You often find that the responses are relatively generic, a copy and paste exercises of identifying planning policy that is relevant to the scheme which ultimately is planning policy that people can find without the need to pay a fee simply by looking at the Council’s Development Plan.

• Pre-application responses are often very limited in terms of providing an opinion against the scheme brought forward and often provide no identification of any revisions or alterations that could be undertaken to make an otherwise unacceptable scheme acceptable.

What information do I need to prepare in advance of a pre-application discussion?
Follow the Questionnaire, answering as best you can, but answering “don’t know” where you need to. Add any plans or photos you may have (if not, often a Google Earth screenshot of the land if very helpful) and provide any details of what you would like to do, within the additional information box. The rest is down to us, and should we need anything further to complete our assessment, we will let you know.