Adding all remaining Prior Approval application types to the Planning Portal

As discussed in our latest webinar, work is underway to add the 12 most recent types of Prior Approval application to our online system. We expect to make these available to users and Local Authorities in the next month or so.

This covers all the Prior Approval requirements that have been introduced via amendments to permitted development legislation over the last couple of years:

September 2020

Applications for prior approval of a proposed:

• Enlargement of a dwellinghouse by construction of additional storeys
• New dwellinghouses on detached blocks of flats
• New dwellinghouses on detached buildings in commercial or mixed use
• New dwellinghouses on terrace buildings in commercial or mixed use
• New dwellinghouses on terrace buildings in use as dwellinghouses
• New dwellinghouses on detached buildings in use as dwellinghouses
• Demolition of buildings and construction of new dwellinghouses in their place

April 2021

Application to determine if prior approval is required for a proposed: 

• Erection, extension, or alteration of a university building

August 2021

Application to determine if prior approval is required for a proposed: 

• Change of use – commercial/business/service to dwellinghouses
• Change of use – commercial/business/service/etc to mixed use including up to two flats

January 2022

Application to determine if prior approval is required for a proposed: 

• Movable structure within the curtilage of a historic visitor attraction, or listed pub/restaurant/etc
• Erection, extension or alteration on a closed defence site by or on behalf of the Crown of single living accommodation and/or non-residential buildings.

Information for applicants and agents

These applications will operate in a very similar way to the other recent types of prior approval on the service. You will be asked to review and confirm the eligibility criteria for your proposals, and then provide the other necessary information to allow the Local Authority to consider all the relevant matters for each specific permitted development right.

Information for Local Authorities

All these applications will be initially available as manual downloads from the ‘LPA Admin’ section of the site. Please get in touch with us if you need any assistance with access to this area.

We are also updating to our data standard to hold the additional information from these applications (and to make some other forthcoming changes, see details below).

Once your IT system supports this latest version (3.0), you will be able to automatically request and receive these applications directly into your back office. Therefore, we encourage all Local Authorities to engage with their IT suppliers to ensure they are ready to work with us to make the necessary changes.

Other forthcoming changes

The new version of our data standard will also allow us to provide legislative compliance across other areas of the application service by adding:

• Entries for all current/proposed Use Classes in England and Wales
• A flag to identify proposals for public service infrastructure developments

This will allow us to update the relevant individual application questions to collect this information.

We will publicise further details of these changes and provide more detailed technical information covering the new version of the data standard in due course. Please contact us in the meantime if you have any questions.