How long a decision notice takes after a committee vote

The committee voted to approve your application. You have no planning permission. The decision notice after committee is the document that creates the permission, and on a small site with a section 106 agreement the gap between the vote and the notice is commonly six to twelve weeks. On a scheme with a complicated title it can be considerably longer.

For a self-builder that gap is expensive in a way nobody warns you about. Contractors are booked, a bridging facility has a drawdown date, and the seller of the plot wants to complete. Understanding what is happening in those weeks, and which parts you can influence, is the difference between a delay and a crisis.

A resolution is not a permission

A committee resolution records what members have decided to do. The permission itself comes into existence when the authority issues the decision notice, and until that happens there is nothing to implement, nothing to sell and nothing to build.

That is not a technicality. Because the decision is taken when the notice is issued, the authority has to have regard to material considerations as they stand at that date, not as they stood on the night of the meeting. The Court of Appeal in R (Kides) v South Cambridgeshire District Council confirmed that a new material consideration arising between resolution and issue has to be considered, and in practice that means officers may have to report the application back to committee if something significant changes.

One piece of good news. The three-year period for implementing the permission under section 91 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 runs from the date of the decision notice, so a long gap does not eat into your time to start work.

What officers are doing in the gap

Several things happen in parallel, and most of them are invisible from outside.

• Conditions are finalised and their reasons drafted, including any condition members added at the meeting.
• Where the resolution delegated wording to officers, that wording is written and checked.
• Consultee responses that arrived late are reviewed against the resolution.
• Any section 106 agreement or unilateral undertaking is drafted, negotiated, engrossed and executed.
• The notice itself is prepared, checked against the approved drawing schedule, and signed off.

The drawing schedule is worth a mention because it delays more notices than people expect. Every plan listed on the permission has to be identified by its number and revision, and where amended drawings were submitted during determination the schedule has to be reconciled. If your drawings were revised three times and the revision letters are inconsistent, expect a query.

The section 106 agreement is usually the cause

On any application with an obligation, the agreement is the critical path. The sequence runs through heads of terms, a draft agreement, comments from both sides, a final engrossment, execution by everyone with an interest in the land, and dating.

The delays cluster in four places.

1. Parties. Everyone with a legal interest has to be joined, which means the freeholder, any mortgagee, any option or promotion agreement holder, and sometimes a management company. Identifying a mortgagee late and then waiting for a bank's consent is the single most common cause of a stalled agreement.
2. Title. The council's solicitor will want to see title and to be satisfied the obligation binds the land. An unregistered title, a missing deed or an undisclosed charge stops everything.
3. Drafting capacity. Council legal teams are stretched, and an agreement waiting for a first draft can sit for weeks. Offering to have your solicitor produce the first draft on the council's own template usually helps, and most authorities will accept it.
4. Fees. The council will want an undertaking for its legal costs before it starts. Give it early rather than when asked.

Where the obligation includes affordable housing, the schedule takes longer still because a registered provider's requirements have to be accommodated. The policy case for the mix and tenure should already be in the Affordable Housing Statement submitted with the application, and a clear statement there shortens the drafting.

Chasing without making an enemy of the case officer

The officer is not sitting on your notice for sport. They are usually waiting for someone else. So make the enquiry useful rather than impatient.

Ask for a list of the outstanding items and who holds each one. Ask whether anything is waiting on you, because more often than you would like the answer is yes. Ask for the draft conditions, so you can raise a problem before the notice is issued rather than afterwards. Ask whether the council needs anything to progress the agreement, such as a title plan or a company resolution.

And follow up on a fortnightly cycle, in writing, with the same short list. A record of polite chasing is also what you will need if the matter has to be escalated to a team leader, and escalation works far better when it is evidently a last resort.

What can still go wrong before the notice is issued

Most resolutions turn into permissions. The ones that do not tend to fail for a small number of reasons, and knowing them helps you judge the risk.

A change in national policy between resolution and issue can be a material consideration requiring a fresh report, which matters because the National Planning Policy Framework has been re-issued more than once in recent years. A new appeal decision or court judgment on a point central to the recommendation can do the same. A material change on the site, such as the discovery of a protected species or the felling of a tree that formed part of the approved landscape strategy, forces a reconsideration. A substantive new objection raising a matter the committee never considered may have to be reported.

Amendments can create their own problem. If the scheme changes after the resolution, the question of whether neighbours have to be consulted again arises, and our note on re-consultation after amended plans explains how authorities approach that discretion.

None of that should make you anxious about an ordinary householder or small-site approval. It does mean that if you know something has changed on the site, telling the officer yourself is better than having it arrive as a complaint.

When a resolution runs out

Many resolutions are time-limited. The wording usually authorises officers to grant permission subject to completion of a section 106 agreement within a stated period, commonly three or six months, and delegates authority to refuse if the agreement is not completed in time.

If you are approaching that deadline, ask for an extension before it expires rather than afterwards. Officers can normally agree one where progress is being made and the reason for the delay is outside your control. Where the deadline passes and the application is refused under delegated powers, you are back to a fresh application or an appeal, both of which cost more than the extension request you did not make.

Where the resolution has no deadline, there is no formal expiry, but a resolution that is more than a year old is vulnerable to the argument that circumstances have changed enough to need a fresh decision.

Building the gap into your programme

Treat the gap as a known stage with a duration rather than as an unexpected delay.

Agree the heads of terms for any obligation before the committee date, not after. Instruct your solicitor and identify every party with an interest in the land at the point you submit the application. Give the legal costs undertaking early. Keep your drawing numbering disciplined so the schedule reconciles. Assume six to twelve weeks from resolution to notice where there is an agreement, and two to four weeks where there is not, then treat anything faster as a bonus.

On the commercial side, avoid unconditional commitments keyed to a date you do not control. A conditional contract for the plot should be conditional on the grant of permission rather than on a committee resolution, and any drawdown date in a facility should sit behind the notice with a margin.

Once the notice arrives, check it the same week. Read every condition, check the drawing schedule against your own file, note the pre-commencement conditions and the discharge route, and diarise the three-year deadline. The register entry is the public record of all of it, and our note on the statutory planning register explains what must appear there.

PlanScope drafts the supporting documents a small-site application needs, including the Planning Statement, so the paperwork is not what holds up the resolution. Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which reports your plot is 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.