Checking an AI draft against the validation checklist

An application is validated against the local list, not against the national one. The validation checklist ai draft question therefore has a precise answer: take the authority's current local list, map every item on it to a document or a drawing in your submission, and resolve the items that are scheme dependent before you press submit. Article 11 of the Development Management Procedure Order 2015 allows an authority to require information beyond the national requirements, provided the requirement has been published and is reasonable, so the local list is the operative document.

A drafting tool can produce several of the written documents on that list. It produces none of the drawings, none of the certificates, and no fee.

Finding the current local list

Search the authority's planning pages for "validation" or "local list" rather than guessing the URL, and check the publication date. A local requirement has to have been published within the two years before the application is made, so a list dated longer ago than that is open to challenge, and in practice authorities refresh them.

Download the version you relied on and keep it with the project file. When an application is returned as invalid for an item you say was not on the list, the dated copy settles the argument in a sentence.

Then read the national list alongside it. The national requirements cover the form, the correct fee, the ownership certificate, the agricultural holdings certificate, a location plan and site plan, and a design and access statement where the thresholds are met. Since February 2024 applications also have to carry the information required about the biodiversity gain condition, which is a national requirement rather than a local one and is a frequent cause of invalidation on minor applications.

Mapping each item to a document

Build the map as a table and keep it in the project, because it is also the audit you hand the client.

Two columns earn their keep. The one naming who produces each item stops a document falling between the architect and the agent. The one recording the status on a given date tells you whether you can submit this week.

Items that are scheme dependent

Most local lists are organised by trigger rather than by document, and the triggers are what you have to work through.

1. Scale: a threshold in units, floorspace or site area, which brings in transport, affordable housing, community involvement and sometimes viability documents
2. Use: residential, retail, employment or community use, each attracting its own requirements
3. Form of application: outline, full, reserved matters, section 73, listed building consent, or a prior approval, which have different lists
4. Operation: demolition, excavation, external plant or extraction, which bring in noise, air quality, structural and waste documents

Section 73 applications catch people out. An application to vary a condition is not a fresh application for the whole development, and authorities differ on how much of the original evidence base they expect to be resubmitted. Ask before you assume, because a refused validation on a section 73 costs weeks at the worst point in a programme.

Items triggered by a constraint

The constraint-driven items are the ones a desk check can identify quickly and an unchecked submission misses entirely.

• Flood zone 2 or 3, or a site of one hectare or more, bringing a Flood Risk Assessment and often a drainage strategy
• A conservation area, listed building or its setting, bringing a Heritage Statement and often a historic building record
• A Tree Preservation Order or trees within influencing distance, bringing a BS 5837 survey and an arboricultural impact assessment
• An Air Quality Management Area, bringing an air quality assessment
• Known or suspected contamination, bringing a Phase 1 desk study, where a suitably qualified and experienced person is legally required under the approach the NPPF and BS 10175 set
• Protected species potential, bringing a preliminary ecological appraisal and, where needed, a survey by a licensed ecologist

PlanScope's constraint detection checks flood data, listed buildings, conservation areas and protected sites and feeds the result into its recommendation engine, which flags the report types a site is likely to need. Those flags are a starting point for the local list check and not a replacement for it, because the authority's own validation list governs.

Drawings, which no drafting tool produces

Say this plainly to clients, because it is the most common misunderstanding about AI-assisted drafting. A drafted report cannot produce a scaled drawing, and most validation failures are drawing failures.

The recurring causes are a location plan at the wrong scale or without the application site edged red, a site plan that omits the whole of the applicant's land, elevations that do not show the neighbouring buildings, a missing roof plan, drawings without unique numbers and revision letters, and a scale bar absent from a drawing submitted as a PDF.

Check the drawing schedule against the submitted files by number, one by one. It takes ten minutes and it prevents the most expensive kind of delay.

Fee, forms and certificates

The fee has to be correct, not approximately correct. National planning fees are indexed annually, so check the current schedule at the time of submission rather than relying on last year's figure or on a fee calculator cached in a template.

Ownership certificates are the other reliable source of invalidation. Certificate A applies where the applicant owns all the land, and the other certificates require notice to be served on other owners and agricultural tenants, with the notice dates stated. An incorrectly completed certificate can affect the validity of a permission later, so this is not a form to delegate casually.

An illustrative example

A 14 unit scheme on a brownfield site partly in flood zone 2, adjoining a conservation area, with three mature trees on the boundary. The submission includes a planning statement, a design and access statement, a flood risk assessment, a heritage statement, a tree survey, an ecology appraisal and a drainage strategy. The example is illustrative.

The audit finds three gaps: the affordable housing statement required by the local list above ten units, the biodiversity gain information, and the drawing schedule listing an existing site plan that was never issued. None of those is a technical problem. All three would have the application returned, and the third is the one nobody checks.

A one page submission audit

• The local list version and date, saved to the project
• Every item mapped to a file name, with the producer and the status
• Drawing schedule reconciled against the actual files, by number and revision
• Fee calculated against the current published schedule, with the calculation shown
• Certificates completed, notices served, dates recorded
• Biodiversity gain information included or its non-application stated
• A named person who has read the whole pack as a reader rather than as an author

That last line is the one that catches the rest. Applications are usually assembled by the person who wrote most of it, and authors do not see their own gaps. Why planning applications are returned as invalid covers the common failure patterns in more detail, and the limits of what a draft can evidence are set out in what drafts get right about structure and wrong about evidence.

Where a list item is one of the documents needing a licensed or competent professional, the draft is a structured starting point for that person, and the professional directory is the route to a reviewer who can sign one off. The pricing page sets out the editing and version control available on each tier, which matters on a submission where several documents are revised in parallel.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.