Local Development Order: permission granted by the council

A local development order is planning permission granted in advance by the council itself, for a defined type of development in a defined area, without anyone having to apply. If your premises sit inside one and your proposal fits its terms, you can build or change use without a planning application and without a fee.

The power sits in section 61A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Orders are made by local planning authorities rather than by central government, which is what distinguishes them from the national permitted development rights in the General Permitted Development Order.

What an order grants

An order grants planning permission for development specified in it, or for development of any class specified in it. That permission operates exactly as a permission granted on an application would, for anyone carrying out development that falls within its scope.

The scope is whatever the authority chose when it made the order. Some orders are geographically tight and generous in what they allow, covering a single industrial estate and permitting extensions, new units, plant and parking within it. Others are wide in area and narrow in content, covering a whole borough and permitting only one thing, such as a category of shopfront alteration.

An order does not remove other consents. Listed building consent, advertisement consent, building regulations approval, environmental permits, licensing and highway agreements all continue to apply, and the order usually says so explicitly. It also does not override an obligation in an existing section 106 agreement on the land.

Read the order rather than the council's summary of it. The summary describes the intention; the order text describes what is actually permitted.

How an order is made

The procedure is set out in the Development Management Procedure Order 2015. The authority prepares the draft order with a statement of reasons explaining what it will do and why, publicises it and consults, considers the representations received, and then adopts it by resolution.

There is no requirement for the Secretary of State to confirm an order, which is why authorities can move relatively quickly. The Secretary of State does retain reserve powers under the 1990 Act to direct that an order is not made or to revoke one that has been.

Orders have to be consistent with the development plan, so an order permitting something the adopted plan resists is unlikely to survive consultation. That connection is worth understanding before you lobby for one, and it starts with knowing what counts as the development plan for your area.

Businesses can and do promote orders. A landowner with a large employment site who wants flexibility for occupiers has a legitimate interest in asking the authority to make one, and authorities with regeneration objectives are often receptive.

Where orders are typically used

The pattern across England is reasonably consistent, and it tells you where to look.

For a small business the town centre and employment estate categories are the ones that matter. An order permitting a change of use that would otherwise need an application is worth real money in time and fees.

Conditions and limitations in an order

Orders almost always attach conditions and limitations, and those conditions do the same job as conditions on a planning permission. They are the reason careful reading pays.

Typical limitations restrict the floorspace of a permitted extension, cap building heights, exclude parts of the order area, exclude specified uses, or require works to be carried out in accordance with a design code annexed to the order. Typical conditions require hours of operation to be observed, materials to match, parking to be provided, or details to be submitted to and approved by the authority before work starts.

That last type deserves attention. Several orders include a notification or approval step, so the order grants permission but requires you to tell the council what you are doing and, in some cases, to obtain approval of specified details. Skipping that step means the development falls outside the order and is unauthorised.

Where an order requires details to be approved, treat the submission with the same care as a planning application. A short supporting statement, structured as you would structure a Planning Statement, makes the officer's job quicker and yours safer.

Checking whether an order covers your proposal

Four checks, in this order.

1. Does the site fall within the order's area, on the order's own plan rather than an approximation of it?
2. Does your proposal fall within the described development or class of development?
3. Do you satisfy every limitation, including floorspace, height, use and exclusions?
4. Can you comply with every condition, including any prior notification or approval requirement?

If the answer to all four is yes, you have permission. If any is doubtful, apply for a certificate of lawfulness for a proposed use or development under section 192 of the 1990 Act, which is the only formal way to confirm that works are lawful, or make a planning application and accept the delay.

Orders and the obligations that sometimes accompany them can appear in the local land charges register, and a search is worth running for that reason alone. The wider question of how obligations appear on title matters if you are buying rather than occupying.

Revocation and modification

An authority can revoke or vary an order, and the Secretary of State can direct revocation. That is the risk in relying on one for anything with a long lead time.

Development already lawfully carried out under an order is unaffected by later revocation. Development not yet begun is a different matter, so a scheme designed around an order and then held for two years while funding is arranged carries real exposure.

The practical protection is to check that the order remains in force shortly before you start, and to consider a certificate of lawfulness at the point the design is fixed. Authorities also review orders periodically, and a review consultation is an early warning worth watching for if the order is central to your plans.

Comparing an order with a full application

An order gives speed, no application fee and certainty of principle, within limits that someone else set. An application gives flexibility to propose exactly what you want, at the cost of a fee, a determination period and a policy test.

The comparison usually resolves on how closely your scheme fits. A proposal squarely within an order's terms should use the order every time. A proposal that needs one limitation relaxed should go straight to an application rather than attempting to argue that the order is elastic, because it is not.

Neighbourhood development orders under section 61E of the 1990 Act work similarly but are made by parish councils or neighbourhood forums and require a referendum, which makes them slower to create and rarer in practice. Do not confuse the two when searching a council's website.

Browse the full set of report types on PlanScope if your proposal falls outside the order and needs a full application instead.

This is general guidance rather than legal advice. Check the position and the current text of any order 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.