Pre-application advice

Formal pre-application advice

If you know you need planning permission, we welcome and encourage you to discuss your development proposal with us before you submit your application. 

To provide thorough and considered responses, pre-application enquiries can sometimes take a significant amount of time. The department is currently under significant pressure due to a high volume of planning applications and pre-application enquiries and unfortunately we are unable to respond to enquiries as quickly as we would like to at this time.

Although we now aim to respond to pre-application enquiries within six weeks of receipt, we are experiencing significant delays in processing these enquiries and currently response times may be up to three months from receipt.

At the moment, we are only able to provide written pre-application advice and are unable to hold pre-application meetings with developers and applicants – unless the application concerns Listed Building Consent or allocated or stalled development sites.

Please see the guidance notes below for further information, including fees.

Why should I get pre-application planning advice?

There are lots of reasons why you might find it really helpful to get pre-application planning advice.  It may help you to:

• Get a feel for whether we are likely to grant you planning permission 
• Understand whether you may need to change your proposals so that they comply with local and national development policies
• Submit a better application. Following our advice means you can prepare a really good proposal and you are more likely to get a positive outcome. 
• Find out if your proposal is unacceptable, saving you the cost of going ahead with a formal application
• Reduce the time spent by professional advisors in working up a proposal
• Identify if specialist input will be required

How do I get pre-application advice?

Read our Pre-application planning advice guidance notes – they explain the situations where you may need to pay a charge, and the amount you can expect to pay (charges are proportionate to the scale of your development).