Applications, appeals, permitted development, enforcement and planning strategy across England
Planning explanations, updates and practical guidance in video form
Need planning help in Wales?
Planning in Wales has its own legislation, policy and procedures. Planning Geek can help with permitted development, applications, appeals, enforcement and planning strategy, making sure the right Welsh rules are used from the start.
England and Wales share much of the same planning-law history, but they no longer share one working system. Permitted development rights, use classes, Article 4 directions and parts of the application process can now produce different answers depending on which side of the border the land sits.
That makes a separate Welsh section more than a tidying exercise. It helps avoid one of the easiest planning mistakes to make online: finding a perfectly accurate English answer and assuming it also applies in Wales.
Start with permitted development in Wales
The first section we are building is the General Permitted Development Order for Wales. England moved to a new GPDO in 2015. Wales did not.
The Welsh permitted development system continues to use the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995, as it has been amended and modified for Wales over the years.
We are therefore working through the Welsh Order from the beginning rather than copying the English GPDO pages and trying to spot the differences afterwards.
The Articles of the Welsh GPDO are now complete on Planning Geek, with the current statutory wording and source links included on the individual Article pages. The next stage will be the Schedules, starting with Schedule 1, before moving into the individual Parts and Classes in order.
Use Classes in Wales are also different
Welsh Use Classes now need their own section too. Wales did not adopt the English 2020 Class E, F1 and F2 structure and still uses its own A, B, C and D framework, together with later Welsh classes such as C5 and C6.
This matters because a Use Class and a permitted development right are not the same thing. A use can sit within a defined class without the GPDO granting a right to change into it.
A good example is a small HMO. Wales has Use Class C4, but the Welsh GPDO does not grant the English-style permitted development right from C3 to C4.
So asking whether a Welsh council has an Article 4 direction blocking C3 to C4 starts with the wrong question: there is no such Welsh GPDO right to remove in the first place.
The Welsh Use Classes section will be rebuilt from the Welsh legislation after the first GPDO structure is in place.
Why Planning Geek is separating Wales from England
Some planning rules remain very similar across England and Wales. Others differ only slightly. Some have diverged completely.
Rather than duplicate every English page, Planning Geek will use a hybrid approach:
- where the legal and practical answer is genuinely the same, one shared page can serve both jurisdictions
- where Wales has a small but important variation, the page can carry a clearly labelled Welsh note
- where the answer, threshold, procedure or right is materially different, Wales will have its own page
This should keep the site usable without allowing English and Welsh planning law to blur together.
The Planning (Wales) Act 2026
Wales now has a major new consolidation statute, the Planning (Wales) Act 2026. It received Royal Assent on 27th April 2026 and is intended to bring much of Welsh planning law together into a clearer bilingual code.
Most of the new Act is not yet in force. A limited group of introductory and machinery provisions came into force on 28th April 2026, including Chapter 1 of Part 1, section 42 and sections 407 to 410, but the substantive new planning framework still awaits commencement.
Welsh Government has confirmed that the existing planning framework continues to apply until the relevant provisions and supporting subordinate legislation are commenced.
The new framework is currently anticipated to come into force in October 2027. For the current commencement position, see Law Wales.
That means the current Welsh GPDO and the rest of the existing planning framework still matter today. Planning Geek will build the present law accurately while tracking the 2026 Act transition so that pages can be updated systematically when commencement takes place.
England or Wales?
If your land is in England, use the main Planning Geek GPDO section for England and the English Use Classes section.
If the land is in Wales, stay within this section unless a page specifically says that it applies to both England and Wales. That jurisdiction label is now a standard part of the Welsh pages so readers can see which rules they are using before getting into the detail.
Latest planning news from Wales
We also track current Welsh planning developments, including legislation, policy, appeals and local planning decisions. Browse the full Planning News in Wales archive or see the latest stories below.
Planning elsewhere in the UK
For the other UK planning systems, see Planning in England, Planning in Scotland and Planning in Northern Ireland.
Legal check: 6th September 2026
Planning In Wales Page Updated: 5th October 2026