Planning Permissions & Approvals

Approvals are where good renovations lose months. Not because the rules are unusually harsh, but because they are layered. Planning and building regulations are separate systems with separate timescales. The Party Wall etc. Act 1996 is separate again. If you hold a lease there is a fourth consent to obtain from your freeholder. None of them queues politely behind the others.

We identify every consent a project needs at survey stage, put them on the programme alongside the physical works, and manage the applications and notices through to determination.

How we approach it

The first question is always whether you need planning permission at all. A great many household projects — certain rear and side extensions, most loft conversions on houses, outbuildings and some roof alterations — fall under permitted development rights and can proceed without an application. Those rights carry dimensional limits and conditions, and they can be removed by an Article 4 direction, by a condition on an earlier approval, or by the property being a flat or a listed building rather than a house.

Where permitted development applies we usually recommend applying for a Lawful Development Certificate. It is formal confirmation that the work is lawful, it protects you if a neighbour objects mid-build, and it is the document a buyer's solicitor will ask for years later.

Where permission is genuinely needed we prepare and submit the application with the drawings, plans and supporting statements the local authority requires, respond to the case officer, and keep you informed through the consultation period. Building regulations approval is progressed in parallel rather than afterwards.

What's involved

• Consent review at survey stage covering planning, building regulations, party wall and leasehold
• Permitted development assessment and Lawful Development Certificate applications
• Householder planning applications, with drawings and supporting statements
• Prior approval submissions for larger rear extensions under the neighbour consultation scheme
• Listed building consent and conservation area advice, with heritage specialists where required
• Building regulations approval by full plans or building notice, and inspection sign-off
• Party wall notices, schedules of condition and surveyor appointments
• Freeholder licence to alter, and liaison with managing agents

In London homes

A householder planning application is typically determined in around eight weeks from validation, though a busy borough or a complicated site can take longer, and a refusal followed by a revised submission adds months rather than weeks. Building regulations run alongside: full plans approval before work starts gives you certainty, while a building notice is quicker to begin but leaves more to interpretation on site.

London adds its own texture. Article 4 directions are common in conservation areas and can remove rights you would otherwise have relied on. Flats and maisonettes have no permitted development rights at all, so even modest external changes need permission, and internal alterations need the freeholder's licence regardless of what the planning system says. Basement works are covered by specific policies in several boroughs, with limits on depth, footprint and construction method.

The Party Wall etc. Act 1996 applies to most terraced and semi-detached work, including many of the structural modifications that make a project worthwhile: two months' notice before work to a party structure, one month before excavating within three or six metres of a neighbour's foundations depending on depth. Serving early, with a schedule of condition, is the cheapest insurance available on a London site.

Working with us

We keep applications and notices as tracked items on the programme, so nobody discovers in week six that a certificate is still outstanding. The approvals feed straight into the structural design and the wider project management and coordination, and where a specialism is needed — heritage advice, acoustics, arboriculture — we bring in the right person through our network of expert professionals.

Look through our projects for properties of a similar type, then tell us what you are planning. We will tell you honestly which consents it needs and how long they are likely to take.