Pre Application Advice
Why seek advice?
Our pre-application advice service offers professional guidance from qualified planning officers on the path through the planning process to attain a meaningful outcome for your development proposals.
Our advice gives you the opportunity to understand how national and local policies might apply to your development and where additional information might be required as part of your subsequent planning application, such as that relating to transport, flooding, noise, ecology, trees and landscape.
What we will provide:-
- Written professional planning advice and guidance on your proposals (see exclusions below), for an up-front fee to cover administration costs and officer time in assessing and drafting the response;
- Consistency in dealing with pre-application advice and with subsequent planning application submissions;
- The highlighting of the most relevant NPPF guidance, Local Plan/Neighbourhood Plan Policies and any other relevant SPD or other guidance to the proposal and any previous planning history that is applicable to the proposal;
Please note: We have currently restricted our Pre-Application advice to only Major applications, all other services will be introduced at a later date, to see what services are currently available please refer to our table of charges.
Listed Building Advice
The council, regrettably, is unable to provide pre-application advice in respect of any works requiring listed building consent (this includes paid advice) at the moment. However, where a proposal seeks planning advice which may affect a Listed Building or its setting for example, then the input of Conservation Officers may be sought where necessary and this is accounted for in the scope and costs proposed.
There is of course advice that can be sought outside of the council through Conservation Architects and Conservation Practices and we would urge you to seek such advice before applying for listed building consent or carrying out any works to your listed building.
All pre-application advice is provided without prejudice to the final decision of the Council on any planning application subsequently submitted.
Confidentiality
The Council does not publish pre-application advice submissions but may be required to disclose these under a Freedom of Information request or an Environmental Information Regulations request. This does not include personal details covered by Data Protection, or commercially sensitive information (subject to the public interest test).
Should a planning application subsequently be lodged with the Council for the same (or very similar) proposal at the same site, then the Council will publish the relevant pre-application advice provided it was provided within three years previous to the date of the planning application being validated.
