The best way to apply for planning permission is through the government’s planning website, the planning portal.

Complete your chosen form, attach the documents and pay in one easy process.

Before you apply make sure you have:

  • checked if you require permission for the work you want to do
  • found out what supporting information you need to submit with your application
  • fully understood how much your application will cost

There’s more information on how to apply on the planning portal website if you’re still unsure.

What happens next?

Your application comes back to us to decide if you can go ahead with your application or not.

We'll look at a number of factors including how it affects the local area, the environment, policies and other people.

We’ll usually tell you our decision within eight weeks. The time limit for large or complex applications is 13 weeks.               

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Contact Planning

You can contact us by sending us a message or by calling us, our offices are open from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday.

If you want to contact the Building Control team, please visit the Building Control section of our website we cannot reply to questions for the Building Control team.

You can call the Planning team on 01925 442819

Phone lines are open Monday to Friday 1pm to 5pm.

Reporting a Planning Breach

You need to report a planning breach online by using our planning portal and register or sign in on the site. For more information on how to register and report a breach please visit our planning breach page.

Comments relating to a planning application

If your message is about comments for a specific application, we are unable to acknowledge or respond to any representations directly with you.

In your submission

You must include everything you want to bring to our attention in your submission. We can only take into account comments made in writing when making a decision.

Once a decision on a planning application has been made and notice issued, the report with responses to comments will be published within 5 working days.

You will be able to look at the decision on our planning website.

Any comments made on a planning application will be a public document and stored (in line with UK GDPR) in the application file with other details about the case. Comments are normally uploaded within 5 working days but sometimes this may take longer. When making a comment, please give us your address so we are clear on what you mean and how any development would affect your property.

Are you an applicant trying to contact a Case Officer?

We work on a single point of contact so if you have a nominated agent on your application form, you will need to contact them. This helps to make the process as smooth and as quick as possible.

Changing the agent's details

You can change or remove your agent’s details by contacting us.

Determining Planning Applications

We currently have a high demand for planning services and are prioritising our workload by timescale. We have taken action to ease this but the effect will not be immediate.

It would be helpful to everyone if applicants and agents would work with us and agree to formal Extensions of Time (EOT) for determining applications for the time being.

Permitted Developments

We do not give informal advice on whether a proposal is permitted development.

If you are a householder you can visit the interactive house on our planning portal for more information.

If you want our formal written confirmation that you do not need permission for a use or development, you will need to send us a Certificate of Lawfulness so we can consider it. For more information on how to apply, please visit our website.

Pre-application advice

Advice and charges for pre-application advice can be found on our website.

If you have a complex proposal, a planning performance agreement may be better. We will contact you with more information about this on request.

We cannot offer pre-application advice for householder developments. We use the House Extensions Supplementary Planning Documents. They help you consider the details of your proposal before you submit it. If you are successful, you will need to stick to the advice in this document after you submit it. Any changes made to it may not be discussed when the application is considered.

Planning history

You can research the planning history of property/land using our interactive map.

Appealing a planning decision

You can find out more information about appealing a decision on our website.

Planning permission

You can find more information on applying for planning permission on our website.

Recent applications

Visit our page See or comment on planning applications for more information.

General enquiries

We aim to reply to you within 10 working days. Please include a specific site address in any questions so we can give a full reply. We will contact you if we need a specific address or more information about your request

The information that you provide will only be used for the purpose of responding to the matter that you have contacted us about. The information will not be shared on or used for any other purposes other than dealing with your query.

For more information on how your data will be used please see our Privacy Policy