Understanding Planning Conditions: What They Mean for Your Build
Almost every planning permission granted in England comes with conditions attached. These are requirements imposed by the local planning authority alongside the permission — and they are as binding as the permission itself. Breaching a planning condition can invalidate your permission, expose you to enforcement action, and create significant problems when you sell.
Types of Planning Conditions
Pre-commencement conditions must be discharged before any development starts. These are the most important to identify and act on promptly. Common pre-commencement conditions include: approval of materials (you must submit a sample or specification of facing bricks, roof tiles, or other materials for the council to approve before using them); submission of a construction management plan (describing how deliveries, site access, and dust and noise will be managed); submission of a drainage strategy; and approval of tree protection measures.
Starting work before a pre-commencement condition has been discharged can invalidate the planning permission entirely — meaning you have built without consent, regardless of whether you had a planning approval document.
Pre-occupation conditions must be complied with before the development is occupied or brought into use. These typically cover things like: provision of required parking or cycle storage; completion of landscaping; installation of approved boundary treatments; and submission of evidence that specific works were carried out as required.
Ongoing conditions remain in force for the life of the development. Common examples: materials must match the approved samples; the permitted development rights of the property may be removed (meaning future extensions require full planning permission regardless of normal PD limits); and a landscaping scheme must be maintained for a specified number of years.
How to Discharge Conditions
Most pre-commencement conditions require a formal application to discharge them — you submit the required information to the council, pay a fee, and the council confirms the condition has been discharged. Keep the discharge decision letter; you'll need it as evidence that you were entitled to start work.
Some conditions are discharged by compliance rather than formal application — you simply carry out the requirement and retain evidence that you did so.
What Happens If You Breach a Condition
A breach of planning condition can result in enforcement action by the council — a Planning Contravention Notice requiring you to provide information, an Enforcement Notice requiring you to remedy the breach, or in serious cases, a Stop Notice halting all works. Enforcement action creates a permanent record against the property that appears in land searches and must be disclosed on sale.
rcbGroup manages planning condition discharge as part of our pre-construction coordination — identifying all conditions at the start, preparing the required submissions, and confirming discharge before works commence.