How a council grants planning permission to itself

A council that wants to build a leisure centre, a depot or housing on land it owns applies to itself, and then decides the application itself. The mechanism is the Town and Country Planning General Regulations 1992, and the resulting grant is usually called a regulation 3 permission. There is no independent decision maker, no right of appeal, and the only route of challenge for an objector is judicial review.

That sounds worse than it usually is in practice. The same policies, the same consultation rules and the same publicity requirements apply, and the decision is taken in public by elected members rather than by the officers who promoted the scheme.

The regulations that apply

The 1992 Regulations deal with two situations. Regulation 3 covers development by an interested planning authority on land in which it has an interest, where that authority is also the local planning authority. Regulation 4 sets out how the application is made and determined.

Everything else runs on the ordinary track. The Development Management Procedure Order 2015 governs validation, publicity, statutory consultation and the determination period. The development plan test in section 38(6) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 applies unchanged. A planning statement, a design and access statement and whatever technical evidence the site needs all have to be submitted in the normal way.

Where a council proposes development in a different authority's area, none of this applies. The application goes to that other authority and is decided by it like any other.

What counts as an interest in the land

The trigger is an interest, not necessarily the freehold. A council that holds a long leasehold, or that has contracted to acquire, can be an interested planning authority. Councils sometimes structure a scheme through a wholly owned company precisely to keep the application outside regulation 3, in which case it is an ordinary application with an ordinary appeal right attached.

That distinction matters to objectors. If the applicant on the form is a development company rather than the council, the permission is a normal one and the applicant can appeal a refusal. Look at the applicant name on the public register before assuming which regime applies.

Who takes the decision

Most councils send their own applications to planning committee rather than allowing officer delegation, and many say so expressly in the constitution. Check the scheme of delegation, which is published alongside the constitution, because practice varies and a small scheme on council land can still be delegated in some authorities.

The committee receives the same officer report, with a recommendation, and members vote in public. Speaking rights follow the council's usual public speaking scheme, so objectors get the same three minutes at the microphone that they would on a private application. Ask the committee clerk about registration deadlines, which are typically a working day or two before the meeting. Officers who have worked on the scheme as promoters should not be the ones writing the report, and well run authorities separate those roles inside the organisation. Where a proposal is contentious, the Secretary of State retains the power under section 77 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to call the application in for determination, though that power is used sparingly.

Publicity and having your say

The publicity rules do not soften because the applicant is the council. Site notices, neighbour notification and press advertisement where required all follow the Development Management Procedure Order, and the timescales for representations are the same. For larger schemes the requirements in publicity for major development apply in full.

Comments on planning grounds carry weight. Comments about whether the council should be spending money on the project, or whether a different site would be better in political terms, generally do not, because they are not material planning considerations. Objectors get more traction on layout, highway safety, daylight, noise, trees and drainage than on the wisdom of the investment.

The limit that surprises people

A regulation 3 permission enures only for the benefit of the authority that granted it. Sell the land and the buyer cannot rely on the permission, because it was personal to the council from the moment it was issued.

This catches out disposal programmes. A council that obtains permission for housing on a surplus car park, then markets the site with the benefit of consent, has to deal with the fact that the purchaser needs a fresh permission. The usual answer is a new application by the purchaser, or a structure in which the developer applies in its own name from the start. Anyone buying council land should check the decision notice and the regulation under which it was issued before pricing the deal.

Bias, predetermination and how they are handled

The law does not treat a council deciding its own application as inherently unlawful. The test is apparent bias: whether a fair minded and informed observer would conclude there was a real possibility that the decision maker was biased.

Section 25 of the Localism Act 2011 helps here. It confirms that a member is not to be taken as having a closed mind merely because they previously expressed a view on the matter, which protects councillors who campaigned for the scheme. What it does not protect is a member who has pre-determined the outcome and is incapable of changing their mind, or one with a disclosable pecuniary interest who fails to withdraw.

Practical safeguards are visible on the papers: a declaration of interests at the start of the meeting, cabinet members standing down from the planning committee for that item, and an officer report that records the objections fairly rather than summarising them into nothing.

Challenging a grant

There is no third party right of appeal against any planning permission in England, and none here. Judicial review in the Planning Court is the route, and the claim form must be filed promptly and in any event within six weeks of the grant.

Permission to bring the claim is needed, and the court applies a standing test, though a resident of the area or a local amenity group will generally have it. Costs risk is the practical barrier rather than standing, and an Aarhus Convention claim caps the liability where the challenge concerns environmental matters.

Grounds that succeed are legal ones: failure to consult a statutory consultee, failure to carry out an appropriate assessment or an environmental impact assessment screening, a report that materially misled members, or a member who should have withdrawn and did not. Disagreeing with the planning judgement is not a ground, however strongly the disagreement is felt.

If a scheme does go ahead, the conditions attached to it are enforceable in the ordinary way and the discharge record is public, which is why building a compliance file after permission is granted is worth doing even on a council project. Levy liability also works normally, and the notices described in CIL liability, assumption and surcharges apply where the charging schedule catches the floorspace.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. If you are preparing a case on a council scheme, you can see the full set of report types an application of that kind usually carries. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.