Local list validation requirements and the two year rule

Local list validation requirements are the documents a council demands on top of the national list, and they only bind you if the council has followed the rules for imposing them. Section 62 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 lets an authority require particulars and evidence with an application, but a local requirement has to have been published on the authority's website within the two years immediately preceding the date of the application, and it has to be reasonable having regard to the nature and scale of what is proposed.

Architects who know those two conditions spend less time supplying documents nobody can lawfully insist on.

What the rules let a council demand locally

The national requirements are fixed: the form, the fee, the ownership certificates, the location plan, the site plan and, where relevant, the design and access statement. Every application in England needs those and an authority cannot dispense with them.

Beyond that, an authority may publish a list of local information requirements. The list is what turns "we would like to see a drainage strategy" into a validation requirement, and it is why two neighbouring districts can ask for entirely different packages for the same building.

The reasonableness qualification is doing real work. A requirement has to be reasonable given the nature and scale of the development and the policies it engages, so a demand for a transport assessment on a single dwelling, or a full viability appraisal on a rear extension, is open to challenge even where the item appears on the published list.

The two year currency rule

This is the rule most people have never read. A local requirement cannot be enforced unless it was published on the authority's website within the two years before the application was made.

The practical effect is that a local list adopted five years ago and never republished or reviewed is stale, and the items on it that go beyond the national requirements cannot be insisted on. Councils know this, and most republish or formally review the list on a cycle for exactly that reason.

Check three things before you argue the point:

1. The publication date on the list itself, and whether the council has issued a later version.
2. Whether the item you are being asked for actually appears on the list, in those words.
3. Whether the list explains the policy basis for the item and the circumstances in which it applies.

A list that says "ecology report where the site may support protected species" is enforceable in the right circumstances. One that says "any other information the council considers necessary" is not a requirement at all.

Where the list has to be published

Publication on the authority's website is the statutory route, and in practice the list sits with the validation guidance on the planning pages. Some councils publish separate lists for householder, minor and major applications, which is helpful, and some bury the requirements inside a supplementary planning document, which is not.

If you cannot find the list, ask for it in writing before submitting. An authority that cannot point to a published, current list is in a weak position to refuse validation for a missing local item.

Keep a copy of the version you relied on, with the date you downloaded it. Lists change, and a validation officer working from a newer version needs to explain why an item that was not published when you submitted now applies.

Items councils commonly add

The recurring additions are predictable, and each usually cites a policy or a statutory regime as its basis:

• Biodiversity net gain metric and gain plan information, where the statutory regime applies.
• Drainage strategy and surface water calculations for anything above a small threshold.
• Tree survey and arboricultural impact assessment to BS 5837:2012 where trees are within influencing distance.
• Heritage statement for works affecting a listed building, a conservation area or their setting.
• Contaminated land screening for sites with a former industrial use.
• Daylight and sunlight assessment in dense urban contexts.
• Parking and refuse strategy, cycle storage details and external lighting.
• Nutrient or water neutrality information in affected catchments.

That last one is worth checking early, because in an affected area the requirement is not a formality. What the council needs in a nutrient neutrality catchment can determine whether the application can be determined at all.

For householder work the list often cross-refers to a design guide, so the drawings have to answer both the validation list and the householder design guide SPD.

Challenging a request

Most disputes resolve with one well-aimed email. Set out the item requested, state that it does not appear on the published list, or that the list was not published within the two years, or that the requirement is not reasonable for a development of this nature and scale, and ask the validation officer to confirm the basis on which it is required.

Where that fails, escalate to the planning manager rather than arguing with the validation team, since the decision on validation policy usually sits above them. Ask for the answer in writing.

If the authority still refuses to validate, the options narrow. You can supply the item under protest and get on with the application, which is what most people do and what most programmes require. You can wait for the period in which the application should have been determined to expire and appeal against non-determination, which is slow and carries its own risks. Or, rarely and expensively, the refusal to validate can be challenged in the courts. The honest advice is that supplying a modestly priced document under protest usually beats a three-month argument, and that the fight is worth having only where the item requested costs thousands and adds nothing.

Building the list into your drawing schedule

The efficient habit is to treat the local list as a deliverables schedule at the start of the job rather than a checklist at the end.

Download the current list for the application type, put every item into the project programme with an owner and a date, and mark the ones that carry a seasonal constraint or a third-party lead time. Ecology surveys, infiltration testing and record searches are the usual long poles. Then map each item to the design and access statement or the technical report that will carry it, so that nothing is written twice.

Where an item on the list is arguably not needed, deal with it in the covering letter with a short reasoned paragraph, rather than leaving a gap for the validation officer to find. A letter saying why no transport assessment is submitted, referenced to the trip generation of a single dwelling, is far more likely to pass than silence. The full set of report types on PlanScope maps closely onto what most local lists ask for.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.

Draft the supporting documents your council's local list asks for in minutes. See PlanScope pricing. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.