What Happens After Planning Permission Is Granted

The email arrives, the decision notice is attached, and the word that matters is there in bold: granted. It is a good day. It is also the point at which a project quietly changes character, from persuading a planning authority to preparing a building that can actually be constructed, priced and signed off.

What follows is our view of that stretch between approval and a contractor on site. It is less visible than the application itself, and it is where avoidable delays tend to gather.

Read the decision notice as a working document

A decision notice is not a certificate to frame. It is a set of instructions, and it rewards a slow, careful read.

Look for four things:

• The approved drawings. Most notices list the specific plans and elevations the permission relates to, by drawing number. Those drawings, not the version you preferred in an earlier meeting, are what you are permitted to build.
• The conditions. Each one comes with a reason. The reason tells you what the authority is worried about, which helps when you come to satisfy it.
• The informatives. These are advisory notes rather than requirements, but they often flag other consents you will need, such as works affecting the highway or protected species.
• The time limit. Every permission has a period within which work must lawfully begin. It is stated on the notice. Diary it now.

Not all conditions are equal

Conditions tend to fall into three groups, and the distinction matters more than anything else on the page.

Pre-commencement conditions must be satisfied before any work starts. Typical examples include a construction management plan, tree protection measures, drainage details or an ecological method statement. These are the ones that catch people out. Starting work before they are formally discharged can put the permission itself at risk, and the consequences can be serious enough that it is never worth the gamble.

Stage conditions are tied to a later point in the build. You might need approval of facing materials before the walls go up, or a landscaping scheme implemented before the house is occupied. They can be dealt with in sequence, but they still need planning into the programme.

Compliance conditions simply hold the scheme to what was approved, for as long as the building stands. Obscure glazing to a side window, restrictions on using a flat roof as a terrace, removal of certain permitted development rights. Nothing needs submitting, but they bind you and future owners.

Discharging conditions, properly

To satisfy a condition that requires details, you make a formal application to the planning authority with the information it asks for. There is usually a fee and a determination period. Both vary, so for Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch see our sourced guide to planning permission in Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch, and elsewhere check directly with Dorset Council, New Forest District Council or the New Forest National Park Authority.

A few principles make this smoother:

• Group submissions where you can. Several conditions discharged together is generally cleaner than a trickle of separate applications.
• Answer the reason, not just the wording. If a materials condition exists because the authority cares about how a house sits in a conservation area, a sample panel photographed in context says more than a product brochure.
• Involve the right specialists early. Drainage details may need an engineer. Tree protection may need an arboriculturalist. These people have diaries of their own.
• Keep a log. A simple schedule of every condition, its trigger, what was submitted and when it was discharged becomes invaluable when a buyer's solicitor asks, years later.

When the design moves on

Designs rarely stand still after approval. Technical work exposes a structural issue, a window supplier cannot make a particular size, or a client lives with the drawings for a few months and wants the kitchen opening widened.

The rule is straightforward: if what you build differs from the approved drawings, it needs to be regularised. How depends on the scale of change.

• Non-material amendments cover changes so small they do not alter the substance of the permission. A modest shift in a window position might qualify.
• Minor material amendments are usually handled by applying to vary the condition that lists the approved drawings. The change is real but the scheme remains recognisably the same.
• Anything more significant generally needs a fresh planning application.

Where the line falls is a judgement for the planning authority, and it is a conversation worth having before work rather than after. Building a change and hoping nobody notices is the most expensive route available. Enforcement action, delayed sales and retrospective applications cost far more than a well-prepared amendment.

Planning approval is not building regulations approval

This is the misunderstanding we would most like to retire. Planning permission concerns what a building looks like and how it affects its surroundings. Building regulations concern whether it is safe, warm, accessible and sound: structure, fire safety, insulation, ventilation, drainage, energy performance.

They are separate regimes with separate approvals. A planning drawing at a scale suitable for an elevation tells a builder almost nothing about how a steel beam bears on a wall or how a junction is insulated.

The stage after approval is therefore when the technical design happens: construction details, structural calculations from an engineer, specifications, and a submission to building control, either the local authority or a registered building control approver. Good technical design is where the refinement of a scheme is protected. Proportion and materiality agreed at planning can drift badly if details are left to be resolved on site. It is also where the cost of the building becomes knowable, which is why our building regulations work sits at the centre of this phase.

The other consents that sit alongside

Several matters run in parallel and are easy to overlook while attention is on planning.

• Party wall matters, if you are building on or near a shared boundary. Notices have to be served on neighbours well ahead of work, and a surveyor may be involved.
• Community Infrastructure Levy, which applies to some developments, particularly new dwellings. Whether it applies, and what forms are needed before starting, is a question for your planning authority. Getting the paperwork order wrong can be costly.
• Highways and utilities, including new dropped kerbs, connections and any work to public footways.
• Title and covenants, which planning permission does not override.
• Health and safety duties, which apply to domestic clients as well as commercial ones, though they are usually carried by the contractor or design team on your behalf if appointments are made correctly.

From drawings to a start date

Once the technical package is resolved, it can go to tender. Contractors pricing the same complete set of drawings and specifications produce quotes you can compare like for like. Contractors pricing planning drawings produce guesses, and the gap between those guesses and the final account is where budgets disappear.

A sensible sequence looks something like this: discharge pre-commencement conditions, secure building regulations approval or at least a well-advanced submission, tender on a complete package, agree a contract, and confirm a start date comfortably inside the time limit on your decision notice.

None of this is glamorous. But it is the work that decides whether the house on site resembles the house that was approved, and whether it arrives without unwelcome surprises.