Can you start without planning permission?

Even if we believe your driveway is likely to be considered permitted development, it is always strongly recommended that no work commences until all of the necessary planning and building regulations approvals are secured. Doing so would be at your own risk!

For driveways building regulations may not be required depending on the extent of the works however this will depend on the final design and is subject to your planning authority’s discretion.

Any good builder will tell you they can’t quote let alone start work without getting confirmation whether planning permission and building regulations is required. Unfortunately, not all builders are so forthcoming or are well intentioned but misguided when they tell clients they don’t need any approvals. It’s important to bear in mind builders are qualified in building but not planning permission.

Starting work without planning and building regulations approvals (if required) not only risks enforcement action from your planning authority but if the wrong materials are used if the design is not up to standard, worst case the build could be unsafe and best case costly retrospective repairs or a rebuild may be required.

There are never any guarantees with planning permission and in fact nobody can even guarantee that something will be permitted development. This is because ultimately the planning authority makes the legal determination. There could be hidden constraints that remove your permitted development rights and planning permission can be subjective.

For any driveway that may be considered permitted development, it is always strongly recommended that an application for a lawful development certificate is made. This is the only way to get a legal determination that what you want to build would be lawful and does not need planning permission. Of course, for a driveway that does need planning permission, commencing work before getting planning permission approved would be a breach of planning law liable to potential enforcement action.

If you do receive an enforcement, you would be given 28 days to secure retrospective planning approval or put the property back to its original state. Unfortunately, retrospective planning applications are always a matter of urgency and are often more complicated. For this reason, they are usually more expensive than other planning applications.

In addition, as with any type of planning application there is never any guarantee of gaining planning approval. Once submitted the planning authority has 8 weeks to assess and reach a decision at which point, they will approve or reject the application.

If construction has not started and the planning authority requests minor design changes in order to approve the application, this is easily done. If construction has finished there is no option to amend the design so, the decision will only be based on what was built which may limit the likelihood of success.

On a daily basis we receive enquiries from clients who have received planning enforcements and been given 28 days to secure planning permission or demolish their development, which is a very costly and stressful situation. 99% of these cases are clients who were sure their development was permitted having either read some info online or been mis-advised by their builder.

In some cases, they could have been permitted with a few minor changes to the design. Sometimes they were permitted at the time of the build but the planning authority have subsequently imposed planning constraints removing their permitted development rights, meaning they now need retrospective planning permission and sometimes it was never going to be permitted development due to the local planning policy.

If you would like to find out what is required for your driveway, the likelihood of success or the costs associated with applying for planning permission please contact us to speak with one of our expert planning consultants today.

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