The first month after planning permission: what to do

Planning permission arrives and the temptation is to file the decision notice and ring the builder. Do the opposite. The first month after permission is granted decides whether the consent is usable, and the work is administrative: read the decision notice properly, build a conditions schedule with real trigger points, settle the Community Infrastructure Levy paperwork before anyone touches the ground, and make sure your first spadeful counts as a lawful material start.

Get that wrong and the consequences are not theoretical. A pre-commencement condition breached on day one can leave the whole permission unimplementable. A missing commencement notice can cost a surcharge and the right to pay the levy in instalments.

Reading the decision notice line by line

The description of development at the top of the notice is the permission. If it says "erection of a two bedroom dwelling" and you build three bedrooms, you have not built what was approved, whatever the drawings show.

Next comes the list of approved plans, usually by drawing number and revision. Check every number against what you actually hold. Consultants issue revisions during the application and the officer may have listed the version from six weeks before determination. If the notice lists revision C and your builder is pricing revision E, fix that now with a non-material amendment under section 96A rather than after the slab is poured.

Then the conditions, each with its reason. Read the reasons as well as the conditions, because the reason tells you what evidence will satisfy the officer. A landscaping condition whose reason cites the visual amenity of the street scene needs a different submission from one whose reason cites biodiversity.

Informatives are not conditions. They cannot be enforced through the planning permission. They do often flag the separate consents you still need, which is why they are worth a careful read rather than a glance.

Turning conditions into a schedule with triggers

Sort every condition into four groups by the moment it bites:

1. Before any development begins. Materials, contamination remediation strategies, construction management, archaeology, and since 2024 the biodiversity gain plan on most schemes.
2. Before a particular stage, commonly before work above damp proof course or before the superstructure starts.
3. Before first occupation or first use. Parking, boundary treatments, electric vehicle charging, drainage adoption, travel plans.
4. Compliance in perpetuity, with no discharge application needed. Hours of construction, restrictions on use, removal of permitted development rights.

Only groups one to three need an application for approval of details. Put each one in a spreadsheet with the condition number, the trigger, who is producing the information, and the date the submission has to be lodged working back eight weeks for the authority's decision. Eight weeks is the standard period for determining a discharge application, and authorities do use it.

Section 100ZA of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 means a pre-commencement condition should only be on the notice if you agreed to it in writing during the application. If one appears that you never agreed, raise it immediately rather than months later.

Community Infrastructure Levy notices before anything else

Where the authority has an adopted charging schedule and your scheme is chargeable, the sequence is unforgiving. The collecting authority issues a liability notice once permission is granted. Somebody then has to assume liability using the standard CIL form, and a commencement notice has to reach the authority no later than the day before development starts.

Self-builders get an exemption, but it is claimed in two stages. Part one of the self-build exemption claim goes in before commencement, and part two within six months of completion with the supporting evidence the regulations list, including a completion certificate and proof that the dwelling is your main residence. The exemption is clawed back if you dispose of the property or stop living in it within three years of completion. A residential annexe and a residential extension have their own exemption forms, and extensions below the floorspace threshold in the regulations are not chargeable at all.

The Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations 2010 impose surcharges for failing to assume liability and for failing to serve a commencement notice, and they also remove the benefit of any instalment policy. Read the liability notice for the figure and the instalment dates, then diarise them. This is the single most expensive piece of admin in the first month.

What counts as a lawful material start

Section 56 of the 1990 Act lists the operations that begin development: digging a trench for a foundation, laying underground mains or pipes to a foundation trench, laying out a road, any work of construction in the course of erecting a building, a material change of use, and demolition. Any one of them, properly evidenced, starts the clock and keeps the permission alive.

Evidence matters as much as the act. Dated photographs, a site diary, the groundworker's invoice and a timestamped drone or phone image of the trench have all been used to prove a start when a permission's expiry was later disputed. The detail of what counts as beginning development repays attention before you book the digger.

The trap is doing the work while a pre-commencement condition is outstanding. On the orthodox view a start made in breach of a condition that had to be satisfied first is not a lawful start at all, so the permission can expire with the trench still open. Discharge first, start second.

How the time limits run

Full permission carries a three year limit under section 91 unless the notice says otherwise, running from the date of the decision, not from the date you receive it. Outline permission works differently: the application for approval of reserved matters must be made within three years of the outline grant, and development begun within two years of final approval of the last reserved matter.

Third parties have their own window. A judicial review of a planning permission must be brought promptly and within six weeks. Until that period passes, the permission is technically vulnerable, which is why funders often wait for it before releasing money on a contentious site.

The consents planning permission does not cover

Planning permission is one of several. In the first month, work out which of these apply and who is doing them:

• Building Regulations approval, by full plans application or building notice, plus the notice to the authority before work starts.
• Party Wall etc. Act 1996 notices, which run to one or two months depending on the work, so they are an early item rather than a late one.
• A section 184 application for a dropped kerb or a section 278 agreement for anything larger on the highway.
• Water and sewer connections, plus a build over agreement where you are working near a public sewer. If your drainage strategy for a minor residential scheme assumed a connection point, confirm it with the undertaker now.
• Consent for works to a protected tree, which is separate from any tree condition on the permission.

Where a condition asks for a construction management document, the scope is usually set by the reason for the condition rather than by a national template. PlanScope drafts a Construction Management Plan and a Biodiversity Net Gain Assessment from the answers you give about the site, and flags the site-specific facts it cannot confirm so your contractor or ecologist can fill them in.

A first month checklist

Work through this in order:

1. Check the description of development and every approved drawing number against your current set.
2. List every condition, its trigger and its owner, with a submission date eight weeks before the trigger.
3. Confirm whether a biodiversity gain plan condition applies and who is producing the metric.
4. Read the CIL liability notice, assume liability, and claim any exemption before commencement.
5. Diarise the commencement notice for the day before work starts.
6. Book Building Regulations and serve any Party Wall notices.
7. Decide the date of your material start and arrange the evidence for it.
8. Note the expiry date of the permission in two places.

Most self-builders lose money in the gap between grant and start, not during construction. Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which supporting documents the conditions on your permission are likely to 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. For specialist technical reports, qualified professional input may be required.