Home / Planning decision
You've heard back. What now?
Whichever way the decision went, there is a next step — and a lot of practices stop at planning and leave you to find it alone. We pick projects up at exactly this point.
Outcome 01
Approved.
Permission is not the finish line. It is a clock starting.
A consent almost always arrives with conditions attached, and most of them must be discharged before work begins. Permission also lapses — usually after three years — so the time between approval and starting on site is not free.
Discharge of conditions
Materials, drainage, landscaping, construction management. We read the decision notice, work out what actually has to be submitted and when, and submit it.
Building control drawings
Planning drawings are not construction drawings. You now need a technical set a builder can price and build from, and that Building Control will pass.
Specification
What goes in the walls, roof and floor. The document that stops a build being priced on assumptions and re-priced halfway through.
Tender and site stage
Getting comparable prices from builders, appointing under a proper contract, and contract administration through to completion.
If your original architect delivered planning and moved on, this is the gap they left. Bring us the decision notice and we will tell you what is outstanding.
Outcome 02
Refused.
Usually recoverable. The question is which route.
A refusal is a document with reasons in it. Those reasons decide whether you appeal or resubmit — and choosing wrong costs months.
Resubmit
Usually the better route where the reasons are about design, scale, massing or overlooking — things a revised scheme can answer. Often free of charge within twelve months of the original decision. Gidea Park: refused 2 June, approved 4 August →
Appeal
Better where the council has applied policy incorrectly, or where the objection is one you cannot design your way out of. Slower, and it needs the case built properly. Maulden, Bedfordshire: the lawful route after a dismissed appeal →
A second opinion first
Sometimes the honest answer is that the scheme was always going to fail on that site. Better to hear it now than after an appeal.
Appeals are time-limited. For most householder applications the window is twelve weeks from the decision. Check your decision notice — if you are close to it, get in touch now rather than after the report.
Outcome 03
Still waiting.
Useful weeks, if you use them.
Most householder decisions take eight weeks, often longer. That time is usually wasted, and it does not have to be.
Start the technical set
Building regulations drawings can be developed in parallel. If permission comes through and the set is ready, you are on site weeks earlier.
Understand the likely outcome
Local precedent is public. What has been approved and refused within a few streets tells you a great deal about where yours will land.
Prepare for conditions
If you can see which conditions are routinely attached locally, you can have the discharge submission substantially ready.
Get in touch
Tell us about the project.
Whether it is a first conversation or a scheme someone else has already started, we are happy to hear where you have got to.
If you would rather arrive with facts than questions, start with the Property Insight Report — the fee is credited against your project if you go on to commission us.
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