Engaging at a developer's pre-application event

A developer consultation event is not part of the council's process, and comments made there are not representations to the local planning authority. That single fact decides how you should use the evening. The exhibition is the applicant's own exercise, usually voluntary, held before an application is submitted, and its output is a report the applicant writes about itself.

Which is not a reason to stay away. It is the only point in the process where the people designing the scheme will stand in front of you and answer questions, and everything they say is on the record if you write it down.

What the event is for and who runs it

Applicants consult early because national guidance encourages it and because a scheme that arrives at the council with local objections already answered has a smoother passage. For most development this is voluntary. A narrow category of development carries a statutory duty to consult before applying, and the position there is set by statute rather than by choice, so ask which applies.

The people staffing the room are usually a mix: the architects, a planning consultant, sometimes a transport or ecology specialist, and often a communications agency running the sign-in sheet and the feedback forms. Work out who is who early. The architect will tell you the storey heights. The communications staff will tell you about the process.

The council is normally not there, and officers who do attend are there to observe. Do not treat anything an officer says at an exhibition as a decision.

Questions worth asking on the night

Ask for numbers, because numbers appear in the application and adjectives do not.

• How many homes, in what mix of sizes, and how many are proposed as affordable.
• The height of each block in storeys and in metres above ground level, and the level datum used.
• How many parking spaces, for how many homes, and where visitor and servicing parking goes.
• Where vehicles enter and leave, and whether the highway authority has commented yet.
• Which trees are being removed, and whether any are protected.
• How surface water will be dealt with, and whether any part of the site is in a flood zone.
• The construction programme in months, the working hours proposed and the lorry route.
• When they expect to submit, and to which council.

Then ask the question that reveals the most: what has changed since the last version, and why. Schemes that have already been through a pre-application meeting with officers usually have a history, and the answer tells you where the officers are pushing.

Getting the drawings rather than the boards

Display boards are designed for a room. Drawings are designed to be measured. Ask for the drawings, at a stated scale, with a north point and a level datum, and ask for a section through the site and the boundary you care about.

A photomontage taken from a flattering position is not evidence of anything. A section drawn from your garden to the proposed building, with levels, is. If the section does not exist yet, ask for it and record that you asked.

Take photographs of every board, including the small print and the site plan, and pick up every leaflet. Note the date. Six months later, when the submitted scheme is taller than the one exhibited, that photograph is the only thing that proves it.

How your comments get reported

Feedback forms go into a report the applicant submits with the application. That document is usually a Statement of Community Involvement, and there is a naming confusion worth knowing about: councils also publish a document with the same title setting out how they involve the public in plan-making and development management. They are different documents with the same name.

The applicant's version typically summarises how many people attended, what themes were raised and how the scheme responded. Themes are the operative word. Individual comments are aggregated, and a specific, technical point made by one person can disappear into a heading like "concerns about traffic".

That is the practical argument for putting your comments in writing, by email, on the night or the next day. A written comment with your name and address on it is much harder to summarise away than a line on a feedback card.

Checking the report against what you said

When the application is registered, read the community involvement document before you read anything else. Compare it against your notes.

1. Does it record the event accurately, including the date, venue and how it was publicised.
2. Are the themes a fair summary of what was actually raised.
3. Does it claim the scheme changed in response to a concern, and did it actually change.
4. Does it omit an issue you know was raised repeatedly.
5. Does it describe the scheme as exhibited or the scheme as submitted.

Where the document misrepresents the consultation, say so in your representation, specifically and without heat. Officers read those documents with some scepticism already, and a neighbour who can point to a dated photograph of a board showing four storeys where the report says three has made a serious point.

Following up in writing

Write to the applicant's planning consultant within a few days, listing the questions you asked and any answers you were given, and asking for the ones you were not. Copy your ward councillor and the parish or town council if there is one.

Keep it factual and numbered. You are creating a record, and a record that reads as a reasonable request for information is more useful later than one that reads as a campaign. Ask for the drawings again in the same message.

If you get no reply, that is also a record. An applicant who ran an event and then ignored written follow-up questions has weakened its own community involvement case.

Keeping your position for the application

Nothing said at an exhibition counts as an objection. When the application is validated, the council runs its own publicity and you have to comment again, within the period stated on the notice, through the council's own system.

Use the time between the event and the application to get your evidence in order. Work out which of your concerns are material planning considerations, because loss of a private view, effect on property value and competition with an existing business are not, while overlooking, loss of daylight, highway safety, noise and harm to a heritage asset are. Photographs, dated, from fixed positions, are worth more than adjectives. If drainage is your issue, the approach in objecting to surface water drainage proposals sets out what actually persuades.

And if the scheme is later amended after you have objected, the council may or may not re-consult. Knowing what happens when plans are amended after you object saves a lot of frustration at that point.

This is general guidance rather than legal advice, so check the position with your local planning authority before relying on it. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval. To understand what an applicant is expected to submit, browse the 66 report types a scheme of this kind may need.