Finding published pre-application advice charges

Pre application fee bands sit on your council's own website, usually on a page called pre-application advice and again in the annual fees and charges schedule that every authority has to publish. Search the council name with the words pre-application advice charges and you will normally land on it in one step. What you get for the money varies far more than the money does.

Pre-application advice is a discretionary service. Councils charge for it under section 93 of the Local Government Act 2003, which lets an authority charge for discretionary services up to the cost of providing them. That is why the fees differ between neighbouring councils, and why a householder enquiry can cost anywhere from nothing to a few hundred pounds depending on where you live.

Where charging schedules are published

Three places are worth checking, in this order.

1. The planning section of the council's website, under pre-application advice, planning advice or planning services. This page normally carries the fee table, the request form and the service standard.
2. The authority's fees and charges schedule, usually a spreadsheet or PDF updated each April and published under finance or budget pages. The Local Government Transparency Code requires councils to publish their fees and charges, so this document exists even where the planning page is out of date.
3. The committee report that approved this year's charges, findable through the council's meetings pages. This is the version that tells you what changed and when.

If the planning page and the fees schedule disagree, the schedule approved by members is the one that binds the council. Take a screenshot of whichever figure you rely on, with the date, because pages are updated without notice.

Typical service tiers and what each includes

Most authorities offer a ladder rather than a single product.

Read what the meeting tier actually includes. Some councils count a fifteen minute telephone call as the meeting. Others give an hour on site with the conservation officer. The gap between those two is the difference between a useful service and a receipt.

Check the turnaround commitment too, usually stated in working days from receipt of a valid request. And check whether the fee covers one round of comments or a follow up on amended drawings, because a second submission at full price changes the economics.

Householder, minor and major bands

Bands normally follow the application fee categories. Householder sits at the bottom, then minor development of one to nine dwellings or under 1,000 m2, then major development, with the largest schemes handled through a performance agreement rather than a standard band.

Two details catch householders out. Some authorities set a separate, higher band for listed buildings or conservation area proposals, because a conservation officer has to be involved. And the fee is often quoted excluding VAT, so ask whether the figure you are looking at is the amount that will leave your account.

For comparison, the statutory application fees are set nationally by regulations and indexed annually, so they are the same everywhere. Pre-application charges are not. That asymmetry is the reason a householder in one district pays nothing for advice and one twenty miles away pays a three figure sum.

What the fee does and does not buy

The fee buys an officer's professional opinion on the proposal as submitted, set against the development plan and material considerations. It does not buy a decision, and it does not bind the authority.

Officers will say that in the response, usually in a paragraph explaining that the advice is given without prejudice to the formal determination of any application, that it is an officer view rather than a decision of the council, and that it cannot bind members at committee. Those caveats are real. Advice has been overtaken by a new local plan, by a change in national policy and by a committee taking a different view, and applicants who treated it as a promise have been disappointed.

What it does buy, reliably, is the list of documents the authority will expect. That alone often justifies the fee, because supplying the right reports first time avoids an invalid submission. If the officer says a Heritage Statement and a Flood Risk Assessment will be required, you now know the shape of the budget.

Preparing so the meeting is useful

Vague requests get vague answers. Send a package that lets the officer give a view rather than ask questions.

• A location plan with the site edged red, at a recognised scale
• Existing and proposed drawings, even if they are sketch level, with dimensions
• Photographs of the site and the neighbouring properties
• A short covering note setting out what you want to do and why
• Three or four specific questions you want answered

Specific questions are the part people skip and the part that pays. "Is this acceptable" invites a hedged answer. "Would a 3.5 metre deep rear extension with a flat roof and a rooflight be acceptable in principle on this side of the terrace, and would you expect obscure glazing to the side window" invites a usable one.

Where the site has constraints you already know about, say so. Officers respond better to an applicant who has checked the flood map and the conservation area boundary than to one who has not, and the preparatory data work runs along the same lines as our note on ordering sewer records and pre-development enquiries.

Weight of the advice given

Pre-application advice is a material consideration in the loose sense that an inspector will read it, but it carries no formal weight and creates no legitimate expectation of approval. Where an officer later takes a different view, that is not in itself unlawful, although an unexplained reversal is something to raise politely and in writing.

Advice ages. A response that relied on an emerging local plan policy may read very differently once that plan is adopted or abandoned, and the supply position can move too, which is why checking the current figures matters, as we set out in our note on housing land supply and delivery test figures.

Treat anything older than about a year as a starting point rather than a position, and ask whether the officer still agrees before you spend money on a full submission.

Recording the advice for later

Keep the advice, the drawings it responded to, and the date, together in one folder. Then quote it in the application.

Officer reports routinely include a section on pre-application discussions, and an applicant who can show that the scheme followed the advice given is in a far better position than one who simply asserts it. Reference the advice by its case number, summarise what was advised, and say what changed in response. Where the scheme departs from the advice, say why rather than leaving the officer to spot it.

Illustrative example. A homeowner pays a modest householder band fee and submits sketch plans, photographs and four specific questions. The written response confirms that a single storey rear extension is acceptable in principle, that a flat roof will be preferred to a pitched one on that elevation, and that no heritage document is needed because the property sits outside the conservation area boundary. The application is validated first time. The example is illustrative and every authority prices and scopes its service differently.

See PlanScope pricing if you want to compare the cost of drafting supporting documents alongside your pre-application budget. This is general guidance rather than 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.