Pre-application Advice
You can get advice from a planning officer if you are thinking of making a planning application. This lets you find out whether we are likely to support your application, before you submit it.
What you need to submit
Before we can provide any advice we need a basic level of information from you, including a plan identifying the land the subject of the application and description of your proposal. However, the more detailed information you can provide the more detailed our response will be. You should include a Design and Access Statement for larger applications and a Statement of Significance for any proposal affecting a heritage asset.
Dealing with your enquiry
The planning officer will usually send you a letter that will tell you whether they think we are likely to support your application. They will also give you advice on what you can do to make your application better.
We aim to respond to every written enquiry in 15 working days but it can often take longer than 15 working days to respond in full. If this is the case we will get in touch with you to you to let you know.
We aim to provide a Development Team approach for important proposals that involve regeneration schemes, leisure projects, large housing sites, and commercial or industrial that provides wider community benefits. The team will give a single point of contact with all the different council services affecting the project. This will save you time, effort and money.
All advice given is informal officer opinion. A full planning application will involve wider scrutiny and consultation, which may show issues that were unknown before.