Planning Permission

What is planning permission?

Well it is exactly what says, it is permission granted by the local Councils planning department for you to carry out a project to your property. There are other issues to do with the planning authorities but they don’t concern us on this site. Let me give you a simple example, you decide you want to build an extension to your kitchen. If that extension is going to exceed 70cu.m.then you need planning permission, often extensions much smaller than that will need planning permission for a number of reasons. If you build 2 storeys you always need planning permission. Top

So where do we start?

To save money it may pay you to inquire at your local planning office by showing them what you have in mind, they will usually be able to tell whether you do or don’t need planning permission. If they say not then you must get that answer in writing in case it gets picked up at a later date. Top

Why should I bother getting planning permission?

Number one, if you build without permission the authorities can obtain a court order to make you take it down, so it would be a waste of money. Secondly even if you were able to build and it not be noticed by the authorities you would have a problem if you decided to sell the property the first question the purchasers surveyor would ask would be, have you got planning permission for the building extension? If the answer is no you wont sell it. Top

What do I do next?

Contact our office we will make an appointment to call at you property to look at your proposals; we would discuss with you what your ideas are and even offer advise if it was needed. If you decided to go ahead with your application we would enter into an agreement with you to carry out the survey and produce draft drawings for you to see and discuss with us in order to be sure that the drawings represent your requirements, (example drawing of a typical project can be found on the Drawings page.) Top

What do we then do?

We will take measurements of the property, and make notes of the layout of the dwelling, in order to produce drawings of the existing dwelling, we will note measurements of the proposals to enable us to produce drawing of your proposals. Again you will see what we mean by this on our Drawings page. At this point we will leave you in peace and proceed to produce drawings in draft form to present to you for your final decision regarding your requirements, it is at this stage that any changes can easily be made. Once we have achieved that agreement we will go away and produce the plans required for a planning application. Top

The final requirements.

Finally we will complete the plans and print the required number of copies for the planning permission request, we also need to produce Block Plans and Location Plans, and we tend to pay for these plans by requesting them from the local authorities that produces them under licence agreement with Ordnance and Survey at a fairly nominal charge, these plans are acceptable to all concerned. We know need to complete planning application forms which we obtain from the local authorities via the Internet. The whole of this will be forwarded to the local planning authority along with their fee, to be considered for planning permission. Planning acceptance or refusal usually takes about eight weeks to come through. Top

Is that all we need to do to start building?

No if planning permission is granted we need to apply for Building Regulation approval. Top

Building Regulations

What are Building Regulations?

Any project that requires foundations, structural alterations, drainage or is close to a hazard or certain specimens of trees such as Oak trees, has to by law be agreed to and inspected by the local authorities Technical Services Department.

The criteria for the requirements vary with a number of factors and are to numerous to cover in their entirety but I will outline the most likely to affect you. Generally the building regulations deal with structural items such as foundations, insulation, structural supports, roof construction and drainage. Top

Building notice.

In recent times it is becoming more common for a Building Notice to be issued as an intention to carry out domestic alterations. What this involves is filling in 2 copies of a building notice request form, 2 copies of the location and block plans and sending them into the Technical services department along with their inspection fee, they will acknowledge conditional acceptance of the request, which will give you the right to commence with the work, however the authorities do reserve the right to request full plans with all the technical information included for the construction of your project.

When a Building Notice is issued it is the duty of the builder or overseeing person to contact the Technical Services Department for inspections of the various stages and to produce Engineering Calculations for any structural supports such as steel beams, roof trusses and some times steel fabrication. Sounds complicated? Don’t worry we will advise you on the best way forward. Top

Full Plans, Building Regulations.

For various reasons you may be required to apply for Full Plans Building Regulation approval. This sounds daunting I know, but not as frightening as it sounds. It does require the drawing of plans with all of the Technical information provide and any Engineering calculations that may be required. Go to our Drawing page to see the sort of information that they require, it will show the presumed depth of foundations and the design of them, information regarding the structural design and materials used, the inclusion of insulation and dimensions required, roof design and structural calculations, also if there is any steel work calculations and dimensions of them.

There will need to be information showing the positions and design of the drainage and access points such as inspection chambers. A lot of this information is fairly standard and causes no problems but sometime there are other factors that can affect your project, for instance if there is a public sewer within the vicinity of the work, if there are trees within 5 metres of the new building, these are things that will need to be addressed and agreement with the Technical Services Department would be needed before proceeding with any building work. In the worst case it can prevent building work being carried out even if you have got planning permission granted. Therefore it pays to check all of this information before putting pencil to paper. This is a service we provide. Top

Feasibility study.

We provide a service, which is designed to assess the feasibility of a project. While it is impossible to be 100% certain that acceptance will be forthcoming we can usually have a very good idea, unfortunately planning people are unpredictable and under ground problems cannot be seen, it is however possible to pick up on likely problems and to iron them out before to much cost is involved. If for instance there was an issue with trees it would be possible to speak to the technical people to get there thoughts on any problems that may arise, it may be that Building regulation approval would be sought before planning permission, this would be the exception rather than the rule. The above information is produced as a guide and cannot seen to be infallible we cannot be held responsible for anyone proceeding with any project using this information or quoting from it. Top