Deemed planning permission

Most planning permission is granted the obvious way: you apply, the council decides, and you get a decision notice. Deemed planning permission is different. In a small number of situations the law treats permission as having been granted without anyone making an ordinary planning application to the council at all.

There are two very different routes to it, and it is worth being clear which one you are dealing with. The first is the one ordinary applicants actually meet: winning an enforcement appeal on the planning merits. The second is a specialist route where a government authorisation carries planning permission with it. This page explains both, and the important limits on each.

Route one: deemed permission when you win an enforcement appeal

This is the route most people meet. If the council issues an enforcement notice against you, one of the grounds of appeal is that planning permission ought to be granted for what you have done. That is the famous ground (a) appeal, and it is one of seven grounds set out in our guide to the enforcement appeal grounds.

When you appeal on ground (a), the law treats you as having made a planning application for the matters set out in the enforcement notice. You do not fill in a separate application form to the council: the appeal itself carries a deemed application with it. If the Planning Inspector, on behalf of the Secretary of State, decides the development is acceptable, they grant planning permission on that deemed application, and that permission is treated as though it had been granted on an ordinary application.

Two points catch people out here. First, a fee is payable for the deemed application, and it is set at twice the fee an ordinary application for the same development would have carried at the time the notice was issued, and our planning fees page explains how that underlying fee is worked out. If that fee is not paid in time, the ground (a) appeal and the deemed application both lapse, and you lose the chance of permission that way, whatever the merits. Second, the Inspector’s decision on the deemed application is final. There is no separate right of appeal against it: your only further route is a challenge in the High Court on a point of law.

The practical takeaway is that a successful ground (a) appeal is a genuine grant of planning permission, but it is not a substitute for applying properly in the first place. You only reach it after enforcement action has started, the fee is doubled, and you have carried the burden of proving the development should be permitted.

Route two: deemed permission on government authorisation

The second route is older and much more specialised. Where certain public bodies or utility providers need a separate government authorisation to carry out development, the government department granting that authorisation can direct that planning permission is deemed to be granted at the same time, so a separate planning application is not needed. The power sits in section 90 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

It covers a handful of specific situations, such as development by statutory undertakers that needs a government department’s authorisation, consents for power stations and electric lines granted under the Electricity Act 1989, and orders made under the Transport and Works Act 1992 for railways and similar schemes. In each case the department can attach conditions to the deemed permission, just as a council can when it grants permission the ordinary way.

This is not a route an ordinary householder or small developer will ever use. It exists so that major infrastructure authorised through a separate national process does not also have to go through a duplicate local planning application. If you are not a statutory undertaker or promoting nationally consented infrastructure, section 90 will not apply to you.

What deemed permission does and does not give you

In both routes, deemed permission is real planning permission with the normal consequences. In particular, the time limits in section 91 apply: development must normally begin within the standard period, measured from the date the permission is deemed to be granted, exactly as it would be for an ordinary grant. Any conditions attached bite in the usual way, and breaching them is a breach of planning control.

What deemed permission does not do is widen what you are allowed to do. It only covers the development actually authorised: the matters in the enforcement notice for a ground (a) appeal, or the development described in the government authorisation for section 90. Anything outside that still needs its own permission. As with the rest of the deemed consent family, the theme is the same: the law treats a specific permission as given, but only for the narrow thing in front of it, and nothing more.

Deemed permission is not the same as the other deemed consents

It is easy to muddle the different deemed routes, so it is worth keeping them apart. Prior approval deemed consent is about a council failing to determine a prior approval application in time under permitted development. Deemed discharge of conditions is about a council failing to decide an application to discharge a planning condition. Advertisement deemed consent is about certain adverts being allowed by the advertisement regulations without an express application.

Deemed planning permission, by contrast, is not triggered by a council missing a deadline at all. It comes either from winning an enforcement appeal on the merits, or from a government authorisation carrying permission with it. See the full deemed consent hub for how the family fits together, and our guide to the types of planning application for the ordinary routes.

Note that the rules here are for England. The enforcement and deemed permission regimes in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland differ.

Deemed planning permission relevant legislation

The provisions below govern deemed planning permission. Check the “Changes to Legislation” panel on each page on legislation.gov.uk, as planning legislation is amended often.

• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, section 90: deemed permission where a government department, an Electricity Act 1989 consent or a Transport and Works Act 1992 order authorises the development
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, section 177: grant of planning permission on an enforcement appeal, and the permission being treated as granted on the deemed application
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, section 174: the grounds of appeal against an enforcement notice, including ground (a)
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, section 91: the time limit within which development must begin, running from the date permission is deemed granted
• Fees Regulations 2012, regulation 10: the fee for a deemed application on a ground (a) appeal, set at twice the ordinary fee

Deemed Planning Permission Page Updated: 9th August 2026