Prior approval: what it is and when you need it

Permitted development rights are a grant of planning permission. They come from the General Permitted Development Order, not from your council, and where a right applies you already have permission to carry out the work. You do not need to apply for it.

For a number of those rights, though, the permission is granted on terms. The Order says the right only applies if the local planning authority has first been asked to check specified matters, and has either approved them or confirmed its approval is not needed. That check is a prior approval. It sits between the right and the work, and until it is dealt with the right is not yet exercisable.

This is the part that catches people out. A prior approval is not a planning application, and the council is not deciding whether it likes your proposal. It is confirming two narrower things: that your site and building qualify for the right at all, and that the specific matters the Order lists have been properly considered. Everything outside that list is none of its business.

 

 

 

 

Why some permitted development rights need a prior approval

 

The rights that carry a prior approval requirement tend to be the ones where the same development could be harmless in one location and a real problem in another. Converting an agricultural building to a house is reasonable in principle, but not if the access is dangerous, the land is contaminated or the building sits in a flood zone. Rather than refuse the right outright, the Order grants it and then requires the authority to look at those specific risks first.

So the question a prior approval answers is narrow. It is not whether the development is a good idea. It is whether the listed matters, on this site, can be dealt with acceptably.

 

What the local planning authority is actually checking

 

Two separate things, and it is worth keeping them apart in your mind:

• Does the right apply at all? Every class sets out what is permitted and, usually at greater length, what is not permitted. Floorspace caps, previous use on a stated date, listed building status, location in a National Park or a site of special scientific interest, and similar limitations all sit here
• Are the listed matters acceptable? Each class names the matters that are open for consideration, commonly transport and highways impacts, contamination risk, flooding risk, noise, and the provision of adequate natural light in habitable rooms

If your proposal fails the first limb, the right simply does not apply and no amount of good design will rescue it. The authority can refuse on that basis without ever reaching the second limb.

The Kenley forestry access appeal in Croydon shows the point neatly. The Inspector found that the works needed to make the access usable were an engineering operation, while a 2003 Article 4 Direction had removed the relevant access permitted-development right. The Inspector therefore did not need to decide whether the forestry proposal would otherwise have satisfied Part 6 Class E: prior approval could not revive a right that had already been withdrawn.

 

The extra paragraphs that define how a prior approval works

 

Reading only the class itself will mislead you. Most Parts of the Order carry additional lettered paragraphs sitting alongside the classes, and these do the heavy lifting: they define terms, set out the procedure, and impose requirements that are not visible in the class wording.

In Part 3, changes of use, that paragraph is Paragraph W. It governs what must accompany the application, when the authority has to consult the Environment Agency or a highway authority, when neighbours must be notified, and when the authority may refuse for insufficient information. Part 20 has its own equivalent in Paragraph B. Other Parts handle it within the class conditions themselves.

There are also interpretation paragraphs that define words in a way you would not guess from ordinary usage. Terms such as curtilage, or the prior approval date from which a completion deadline runs, are given specific meanings within the Part where they appear. Always read the whole Part, not just the class.

 

How long a prior approval takes

 

Timing matters more here than in an ordinary planning application, because in most cases the clock is not merely a service standard. It is the mechanism by which the right becomes exercisable.

Article 7 of the Order sets the decision period. The authority must decide within the period specified in the relevant provision of Schedule 2; where no period is specified, within eight weeks beginning with the day after the application was received; or within such longer period as the applicant and the authority agree in writing. Individual classes commonly specify their own period, and under Part 3 that period is 56 days.

The written agreement route matters in practice. It is not unusual for an authority running short of time to ask for an extension, and agreeing one is often sensible if the alternative is a refusal for want of information. It has to be in writing.

Where the period expires without the authority notifying you of its decision, the development may in defined circumstances begin anyway. That is the deemed consent route, and it carries real traps around what exactly you are then permitted to build. It is covered separately in our guide to prior approval deemed consent and the 56-day rule.

 

What it costs

 

A prior approval application attracts a fee. It is lower than the fee for a full planning application, and the amount depends on the class and on whether the proposal includes building operations as well as a change of use. Because the figures are uprated annually, we do not quote them here. Our guide to planning application fees sets out the current position.

Be aware that a prior approval refused for insufficient information still consumes the fee. Submitting thin and hoping to be asked for more is a false economy.

 

If the authority refuses

 

A refusal of prior approval carries a right of appeal to the Planning Inspectorate. This is worth stating plainly, because the informal, tick-box reputation prior approvals have acquired leads people to assume otherwise. Where the authority refuses because the proposal does not comply with the conditions and limitations of the class, or because it was given too little information to tell, that refusal is treated as a refusal of an application for approval for appeal purposes.

The deadline is not the householder twelve weeks. Check it before you assume you have time. Our guide to planning appeals covers the routes and the time limits.

 

Should you apply at all?

 

Sometimes the honest answer is that a prior approval is the wrong instrument. Three situations come up repeatedly:

• The right plainly does not apply. If the building is listed, or the floorspace is over the cap, no prior approval will help. A full planning application is the route, and applying for prior approval first simply loses you time and a fee
• You want certainty about work already done, or about whether permission is needed at all. That is a lawful development certificate, not a prior approval. The two are often confused
• You want more than the right allows. Prior approval cannot be used to negotiate a larger scheme. The authority has no power to approve something outside the class. If your proposal has grown beyond what the right permits, apply for planning permission and argue it on its merits

Conversely, where a right clearly applies and the listed matters are straightforward, prior approval is markedly faster and cheaper than a planning application, and the authority’s discretion is far narrower. Used in the right circumstances it is a genuinely useful route.

If you are unsure which of these situations you are in, the council may be willing to tell you before you commit. See our guide to pre-application advice, which is optional and never binding, but can be useful where the position is finely balanced.

 

Where prior approval requirements appear

 

Prior approval requirements are scattered across the Order rather than gathered in one place. The most frequently encountered are in Part 1 for larger householder extensions and additional storeys, Part 3 for changes of use, Part 6 for agricultural development, Part 11 for demolition, Part 16 for electronic communications and Part 20 for new dwellings on existing buildings. Each has its own list of matters and its own decision period, so check the specific class rather than assuming the Part 3 pattern applies everywhere.

 

Prior notification and prior approval: the same thing?

 

Not quite, although the two terms are used interchangeably so often that in ordinary conversation the distinction has largely collapsed. If someone tells you they are submitting a prior notification, they usually mean the process described on this page.

Where the wording does still matter is under Part 6, which covers agricultural and forestry development. There the first step is not an application for prior approval at all. It is an application for a determination as to whether prior approval will be required for matters such as siting, design and external appearance. The council then does one of three things within 28 days of receiving the application: it tells you prior approval is not required, in which case you can proceed; it tells you prior approval is required, which starts a second stage in which the scheme itself is considered; or it does nothing, in which case the 28 days expire and you may proceed without it.

That two-stage shape is the reason the older language survives. The notification comes first, and approval only follows if the council decides it needs to look more closely. Part 11 demolition and the electronic communications provisions in Part 16 work on a similar footing.

For most readers the practical advice is simple. Do not worry about which label your council uses on its forms. Work out which class of permitted development you are relying on, then read that class to see what it actually requires and how long the authority has to respond. The label follows the class, not the other way round.

One thing the terminology does not change: neither route is a planning application, and neither gives the council a general discretion to consider the merits of your scheme. It may only consider the matters the class lists.

 

Missing the prior approval deadline does not expand the GPDO

 

Keenan v Woking Borough Council [2017] EWCA Civ 438 is an important limit on the deemed-consent rules. The council had failed to respond within the 28-day period which applied to the agricultural prior-approval procedure then in force. That allowed the developer to proceed without a further prior-approval determination, but it did not turn development outside the relevant permitted-development class into permitted development.

The underlying class still has to be satisfied. In Keenan, the track was not reasonably necessary for agriculture or forestry, so the expiry of the prior-approval period did not create planning permission for it. A prior-approval deadline controls the procedural condition; it does not enlarge the substantive scope of the GPDO.

That distinction remains useful whenever a class has a deemed-consent mechanism. Before relying on an expired deadline, check both questions separately: has the prior-approval procedure been completed or timed out, and does the development itself still fall within every definition, limitation and condition of the permitted-development right?

 

Light touch does not mean no touch

 

Prior approval is deliberately narrower than a full planning application, but that does not make it a rubber stamp. In R (Rickards) v East Hertfordshire District Council [2025] EWHC 2278 (Admin), which concerned three agricultural polytunnels under Part 6 Class A, the High Court described the process as a “light touch” regime but added that light touch does not mean no touch.

The council was entitled to proceed on the agricultural information before it and did not have to carry out a fresh site visit simply because an objector asked for one. But it had failed to consider the nearby Grade II listed building and ancient woodland at all when dealing with the siting, design and external appearance of the development. That was enough for the decision to be quashed.

The practical point is simple: the council cannot widen prior approval into a full merits exercise, but it must still address material considerations which genuinely bear on the matters the GPDO allows it to consider.

 

Do approved plans and details bind you?

 

For Part 3 changes of use governed by paragraph W, yes. Paragraph W of the current GPDO says that where prior approval is required, the development must be carried out in accordance with the details approved by the local planning authority.

That wording mattered in Dharmeshkumar v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government [2025] EWHC 25123 (Admin). The approval did not contain the familiar planning-permission wording saying that the development must be carried out “in accordance with” specified plans. The court nevertheless held that the GPDO itself supplied the legal requirement to follow the approved details.

So do not assume that an omission from the decision notice gives you freedom to depart from what was approved. The answer depends on the statutory code for the particular permitted development right. Under Part 3, paragraph W can do the work that an express condition would normally do on a planning permission.

See also our guide to the types of planning application.

 

 

Prior Approval relevant legislation

 

Legislation is amended frequently. When following these links, check the “Changes to Legislation” panel at the top of the page, which records amendments made by later instruments and any changes not yet applied to the text on screen.

• Article 7, Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 – prior approval applications: time periods for decision
• Article 7ZA – modified procedure where an application is called in
• Schedule 2, Part 3 – changes of use, including Paragraph W
• Schedule 2, Part 1 – development within the curtilage of a dwellinghouse
• The General Permitted Development Order 2015 in full

Other Planning Application Sections

 

 

Prior Approval Page Updated: 4th September 2026