Extension of time agreement or renewing a permission

These two things get confused constantly and they are not related. An extension of time agreement extends the period in which the council may determine an application that is still undetermined. Renewing a permission means keeping an existing consent alive past its implementation deadline, and in England that cannot be done at all. There is no renewal application. If the three years run out, the permission is gone.

So the question of extension of time or renewal of permission is really two separate questions, and the second one has only three answers: make a material start, make a fresh application, or lose it.

The extension of time agreement

The statutory determination period is 13 weeks for a major application, eight weeks otherwise, or 16 weeks where the development is subject to environmental impact assessment. The Development Management Procedure Order 2015 allows the applicant and the authority to agree a longer period in writing.

That agreement does one thing. It postpones the date at which the authority is in default, and with it the date your right of appeal against non-determination arises. It does not extend any permission, because there is no permission yet.

Authorities ask for extensions routinely, and there is usually a reason to agree. A consultee response is outstanding. The committee cycle falls a fortnight after the deadline. A section 106 agreement is close but not completed. Refusing an extension in those circumstances usually produces a refusal rather than a decision, which helps nobody.

Three points of discipline when agreeing one.

Agree a specific date, not an open-ended extension, and put it in writing by email with the case officer.

Ask what the extension is for, and ask for the officer's current recommendation, because an extension to complete a section 106 implies a positive recommendation while an extension to await a highways objection does not.

Keep track of the performance implications. An authority counting the application as determined within an agreed period is reporting differently from one counting it as out of time, which is one reason extensions are requested so readily.

Why a lapsed permission cannot be renewed

A full permission must begin within three years of the date it was granted, under section 91 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, unless the authority imposed a different period. For an outline permission section 92 sets the pattern: reserved matters applications within three years, and development begun within two years of the final approval of reserved matters.

Between 2009 and 2010 a simplified route existed to extend those time limits by application. It was withdrawn in England in 2010 and has not returned. There is no mechanism to extend the life of a permission.

A section 73 application cannot do it either, and this is worth being precise about. Section 73 allows conditions to be varied, but section 73(5) expressly prevents a permission being granted under section 73 to the extent that it would extend the time within which development must be started or within which reserved matters applications must be made. People try this every year and it fails on the face of the statute.

Making a material start

Beginning development stops the clock permanently. Section 56 of the 1990 Act defines when development is begun, by reference to material operations: digging a trench forming part of the foundations, laying out or constructing a road, laying underground mains or pipes, and demolition among them.

A small but genuine material operation is enough. A section of foundation trench excavated and inspected, with photographs, dated records and the building control inspection logged, is the standard approach.

The trap is lawfulness. Where conditions must be discharged before development starts, an operation carried out without discharging them may not count as beginning the development at all, and the permission can expire while the applicant believes it has been implemented. The principle has been applied in the courts for decades and it still catches people.

So before relying on a material start, do three things. List every condition that bites before the start of development. Confirm in writing that each has been formally discharged, not merely that information has been submitted. And record the operation itself with dated photographs, a site diary entry and, where relevant, a building control visit.

Once development has lawfully begun, the permission does not lapse. The only residual risk is a completion notice, which authorities use rarely.

A fresh application, and what has changed

Where the permission has expired or a start is not possible, a fresh application is the route. Treat it as a new application rather than a copy of the old one, because the policy and regulatory position will have moved.

Four things to check before resubmitting the same scheme.

Biodiversity net gain. A permission granted before the mandatory regime began was not subject to the biodiversity gain condition. A new permission will be, which means the statutory metric, a 10 per cent uplift and a biodiversity gain plan approved by the authority. A biodiversity net gain assessment is work the Environment Act 2021 regime expects a competent person to carry out.

The development plan. A local plan adopted since the original permission may have changed housing mix, parking standards, space standards or design policy.

Contributions. The CIL charging schedule may have been revised and indexed, and the section 106 heads of terms will be renegotiated against current policy.

Technical baselines. Flood risk climate change allowances, trip rate data and ecological records all age, and the planning statement will need rewriting against the current policy framework rather than the one in force when the original application was made.

Whether the application goes to committee or is decided by officers may also change with the policy position, and our note on committee determination against a delegated decision sets out how authorities split that.

Diarising the dates

Four dates belong in the diary on every permission, with reminders set well before each.

1. The implementation deadline from the decision notice, read from the notice itself rather than assumed to be three years.
2. For an outline, the deadline for submitting the last reserved matters application, and separately the two year period running from final approval.
3. Every pre-commencement condition, with the lead time for the information each requires.
4. The date six months before the implementation deadline, as the decision point on whether to make a material start or prepare a fresh application.

Point four is the useful one. Six months is roughly the time needed to discharge outstanding conditions and organise a material start, or to prepare and submit a fresh application with a reasonable prospect of determination before the old permission dies. Leave it to the last six weeks and the choice makes itself badly.

Read the decision notice rather than relying on the standard three years. Authorities do impose shorter periods, particularly on permissions granted where an early start matters, and the notice governs. The full report index covers the documents a fresh application will need.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional 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.