Varying or Discharging Listed Building Consent Conditions

Listed building consent is rarely granted unconditionally, and schemes rarely survive contact with the building unchanged. Section 19 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 is the route for changing those conditions after the event, but it has two hard edges that catch people out. It cannot be used to buy more time, and asking to change one condition opens the door to new ones. This page explains what a section 19 application can and cannot do, how to make one, and how appeals work.

 

 

 

What a section 19 application does

 

Section 19(1) is short and broad: any person interested in a listed building with respect to which listed building consent has been granted subject to conditions may apply to the local planning authority for the variation or discharge of the conditions. The application must indicate exactly what variation or discharge is applied for.

Note who can apply. It is not limited to the original applicant or the owner, because “any person interested in” the building is a wider class, which matters where a building has changed hands or where a leaseholder is carrying out the works.

“Vary” and “discharge” are different things. Varying means changing a condition’s wording; discharging means removing it altogether. A single application can seek either, or both across different conditions.

 

When you might vary listed building consent conditions

 

The everyday use is straightforward: a condition has become impractical, or the works need to differ from what was approved. Common examples are conditions specifying particular materials, requiring a particular method of repair, or controlling the timing or sequence of works.

The more difficult question is what happens where the condition is an approved-plans condition and the proposed change is really a change to the drawings. That point is not settled as neatly as the wording of section 19 might suggest.

 

Can section 19 be used to change the approved drawings?

 

This is where practice becomes surprisingly untidy. Section 16(1) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 gives the decision-maker a general power to grant listed building consent subject to conditions. Section 17 then begins ‘without prejudice to the generality of section 16(1)’ and says that conditions may include the particular matters listed there. That wording matters because section 17 is not expressed as an exhaustive list of the only conditions that can lawfully be imposed.

Despite that, two Planning Inspectorate decisions in 2021 took a restrictive approach to approved-plans conditions.

In Brook Lodge, Batheaston – APP/F0114/Y/21/3269086, the Inspector considered a section 19 application seeking to vary a condition listing the approved plans. The Inspector concluded that section 17 provided no mechanism by which the Council could have imposed the original plans condition, treated the condition as invalid and dismissed the appeal on procedural grounds.

The reasoning in Flat 2, 92 Mount Street, Westminster – APP/X5990/Y/20/3261046 was more nuanced. The Inspector said there is no listed-building equivalent of section 73 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and that listed building consent is granted for specific works, so a fresh application should normally be sought for variations to those works. However, the same decision also expressly accepted that the wording of sections 16 and 17 does not exclude the imposition of a plans condition. The Inspector did not determine the attempted variation of the approved-plans condition, but did go on to determine the proposed variation of another listed building condition on its merits.

The Institute of Historic Building Conservation’s 2022 guidance on section 19, produced in consultation with its Legal Panel, takes a different view. It argues that where a condition requires adherence to approved drawings, it is the wording of the condition that section 19 varies. On that approach, revised drawings can be substituted provided the amended works remain within the written description and substance of the listed building consent. A minor adjustment to an approved extension may therefore be capable of being dealt with under section 19, whereas changing a single-storey extension into a two-storey extension would plainly go beyond it.

Later appeal practice has not removed the uncertainty. In Milton Green Farm – APP/A0665/Y/24/3341448, decided in October 2024, the Inspector repeated the view that a fresh listed building application should be sought for variations to the specific works. Nevertheless, because the Council had imposed the approved-plans condition and had determined the section 19 application, the Inspector also determined the appeal on its heritage merits rather than treating the section 19 route as incapable of being used.

So there is no safe national rule that an approved-plans condition can always be varied under section 19, nor is it accurate to say that section 19 can never be used in that way. The IHBC interpretation remains persuasive and many authorities continue to accept section 19 applications seeking relatively minor changes to approved drawings, but some authorities take the more restrictive Inspectorate approach.

Practical point: if the proposed change affects approved drawings, check the local authority’s approach before submitting. Westminster currently takes a restrictive view and may require a fresh listed building consent rather than validating a section 19 application. Elsewhere a section 19 application may still be accepted, particularly for a limited change that remains clearly within the description and substance of the original consent. If the change materially alters what was actually authorised, a fresh application for listed building consent is the safer route.

 

What section 19 cannot do: the time limit trap

 

This is the trap. Listed building consent must be begun within three years of the grant. If your consent is running out, section 19 is not the answer, because section 19(5) says a variation or discharge of conditions under the section must not:

• vary a condition subject to which a consent was granted by extending the time within which the works must be started
• discharge such a condition

Both limbs matter, and together they close the loophole completely. You cannot extend the clock, and you cannot get rid of the clock either. If a consent is about to lapse and the works have not begun, the usual route is a fresh application for listed building consent, and that will be judged on the policy and the building as they stand then, not as they stood when the original consent was granted. There is now one statutory exception, added by section 56 of the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 and in force since 18th February 2026. Where the consent is caught up in a legal challenge, the time for starting the works is extended automatically: by a year once a court gives permission to bring the claim, by a further year if it goes to the Court of Appeal, and by two more if it reaches the Supreme Court. It cannot rescue a consent whose time has already run out.

This restriction was added in England on 24th August 2005 by the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. It mirrors the equivalent bar in the planning system, so anyone used to section 73 applications will find it familiar.

 

The council can add new conditions

 

The second hard edge sits in section 19(4). On a section 19 application the authority may vary or discharge the conditions and may add new conditions consequential upon the variation or discharge, as they think fit.

So the application is not a one-way street. You are not simply asking for permission to remove something; you are inviting the authority to revisit that part of the consent. The new conditions must be consequential upon the variation or discharge, and cannot be a free-for-all reopening of the whole consent, but within that limit the authority has real latitude.

The practical implication is to think before applying. Where a condition is merely inconvenient rather than genuinely obstructive, a section 19 application may cost more than it gains.

 

How to apply to vary listed building consent conditions

 

Section 19(3) applies sections 10 to 15 of the Act to a section 19 application as they apply to an application for listed building consent. In practice that means the same machinery: the application goes to the local planning authority on its form, it needs the ownership certificate, and the publicity, notification and referral rules all apply as they would to a consent application.

Listed building consent applications carry no fee, and a section 19 application sits in the same regime. Where the same change also needs a section 73 application on the planning permission, that one does carry a fee, so see our guide to planning fees.

The application must indicate what variation or discharge is sought, so identify the condition by number and set out the precise wording you are asking for, rather than describing the outcome in general terms. Conservation still drives the decision. The duty to have special regard to preserving the building, its setting and its special features is written into section 16(2), which is worded as applying to the grant of listed building consent rather than to a section 19 application, because section 19(3) brings in sections 10 to 15 and not section 16. In practice councils and inspectors weigh a variation by the same conservation test, so expect to argue your case on that ground.

 

Appeals

 

Section 20 gives a right of appeal to the Secretary of State, in practice the Planning Inspectorate, and it expressly covers section 19 applications. An applicant who is aggrieved may appeal where the authority:

• refuses the application for variation or discharge
• grants it and adds new conditions

That second limb is worth pausing on: getting what you asked for does not necessarily end the matter, because a grant with unwelcome new conditions attached is itself appealable.

There is also a non-determination appeal where the authority has not given notice of its decision within the relevant period, or any longer period agreed in writing. Appeals against listed building consent decisions must be made within six months of the decision notice, so check the notice, which will set out the position. See our guide to planning appeals and timescales.

 

Breaching a condition is a criminal offence

 

It is worth being blunt about why this matters. Failing to comply with a condition attached to listed building consent is a criminal offence under section 9(2) of the Act, prosecutable in the magistrates’ court or the Crown Court. That is a sharper consequence than the planning system’s breach of condition notice route.

The IHBC’s guidance makes a related point: departing from the approved drawings does not automatically invalidate the consent. The consent still exists, but you are in breach of the condition requiring adherence to them. The consent surviving is cold comfort when the breach is itself an offence. If the works need to change, changing the condition first is the safe course.

 

How it compares with a section 73 planning application

 

The two sit side by side and are often needed together, but they are not the same:

• section 73 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 varies conditions on a planning permission; section 19 varies conditions on listed building consent
• both are barred from extending the time limit for starting the works
• a section 73 application results in a new, separate planning permission sitting alongside the original; section 19 is framed as varying or discharging the conditions attached to the existing consent
• breaching a listed building consent condition is a criminal offence; breaching a planning condition is not, unless and until a breach of condition notice is served and ignored

If a scheme has both a planning permission and a listed building consent, as most alterations to listed buildings do, a change to the design may well need both a section 73 and a section 19 application. Neither one carries the other.

For the wider picture on how conditions work in the planning system, see our guide to planning conditions.

See also our guide to the types of planning application.

 

 

Relevant legislation

 

Section 19 sits in the listed buildings Act alongside the consent it modifies. When checking any provision, use the “Changes to Legislation” panel on legislation.gov.uk, as later amendments are not always shown in the main text.

• Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, section 16: the general power to grant listed building consent subject to conditions and the statutory duty concerning preservation of the building, its setting and features of special interest
• Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, section 17: specific examples of conditions that may be imposed, without prejudice to the general power in section 16(1)
• Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, section 19: applications to vary or discharge conditions, the power to add new conditions, and the bar on extending time
• Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, section 18: the three-year limit that section 19 cannot extend
• Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, section 20: the right of appeal, including where consent is granted with new conditions added
• Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, section 9: the offence of failing to comply with a condition
• Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, section 51: inserted the bar on extending time limits
• Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025, section 56: extends the time for starting works where the consent is under legal challenge

Other Planning Application Sections

 

 

Listed Building Consent Conditions Page Updated: 23rd August 2026