Material consideration: what a council can lawfully consider

A material consideration in planning is anything that relates to the use and development of land and that bears on the planning merits of the application in front of the council. There is no statutory list. Section 70(2) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 requires the authority to have regard to the development plan, so far as material, and to "any other material considerations", and section 38(6) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 requires the decision to be made in accordance with the plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise. Almost every argument you can lawfully make to a case officer sits inside those two provisions.

What the statute actually says

Section 70(2) is two lines long and deliberately open. Parliament declined to define the phrase, and the courts have refused to produce a closed list, because the range of things that can affect the use of land changes with policy and with technology.

The working formulation comes from Stringer v Minister of Housing and Local Government (1970): any consideration which relates to the use and development of land is capable of being a planning consideration. Capable of being. That is the first filter, and it is far wider than most objectors assume.

The second filter is whether the consideration is relevant on the facts of this application. Overshadowing is material in principle. On a single-storey rear extension to a north-facing terrace with a 30 metre garden, it may carry almost nothing. Both filters have to be passed before weight is even discussed.

Material in principle, relevant in practice

Case officers deal with this distinction every week, and they rarely explain it in the report. An objection saying "the extension will overshadow my garden" is admitted, assessed and then given little weight because the sun path shows a shadow falling for 40 minutes in midwinter. The objector reads the report, sees their point mentioned and then ignored, and concludes the council was not listening.

The fix is to write the objection so that the factual link is already made. Not "this will overshadow us" but a measured statement: the boundary is 2.1 metres from the proposed flank wall, the wall is 6.4 metres high, and the affected room is a kitchen with a single east-facing window. Officers can weigh that. They cannot weigh an assertion.

Considerations that are almost always material

These recur in officer reports across England, whatever the council:

• the adopted development plan and any emerging plan, with weight according to its stage
• national policy in the National Planning Policy Framework, current edition published on 17 August 2026, which is now organised by policy code rather than paragraph number
• design, scale, massing and the relationship to the street
• loss of daylight, sunlight, outlook and privacy to nearby homes
• highway safety, access visibility and parking demand
• noise, odour, dust, lighting and hours of operation
• effect on a listed building, its setting, or the character and appearance of a conservation area
• trees, protected species, habitats and biodiversity net gain
• flood risk, drainage and land contamination
• the planning history of the site, including previous refusals and appeal decisions
• whether a condition or a planning obligation could make an unacceptable scheme acceptable

Government policy also carries weight as a material consideration in its own right, which is why an application can be approved against an out-of-date local plan policy. If you want the longer version of which documents actually form the plan, our note on what counts as the development plan sets out the statutory components.

Objections that carry no weight

The list of non-material objections is shorter and far more consistent. Loss of a private view is not material in English planning law, however good the view. Loss of property value is not material. Neither is the identity, nationality, motive or financial position of the applicant.

Boundary disputes, restrictive covenants, rights of light and party wall matters are all real legal issues, and none of them is a planning consideration. They are civil matters between the parties, and a planning permission grants nothing more than freedom from planning control.

Competition is not material either. A council cannot refuse a second takeaway because the first one will lose trade, although it can refuse it on cumulative noise, odour or litter grounds, which are different arguments with different evidence.

And matters controlled by another regime usually get short shrift: fire safety in the completed building, drainage design detail, food hygiene, construction site safety. The officer will say the issue is dealt with under the Building Regulations or by the Environment Agency, and move on.

Who decides how much weight to give

Whether something is material at all is a question of law, and the courts will decide it. How much weight to give a material consideration is a matter of planning judgement for the decision maker, and the courts will only interfere if the judgement is irrational. That division was settled in Tesco Stores Ltd v Secretary of State for the Environment (1995) and it explains why judicial review of a planning decision so rarely succeeds on the merits.

In practice the decision maker is a case officer under delegated powers for most applications, and a planning committee for the rest. Committee members may weigh things differently from their officers, and they are entitled to, provided they give planning reasons. What they cannot do is give weight to a non-material point, however many residents raise it.

Volume itself is not weight. Two hundred identical objection cards about a private view count for nothing. One objection setting out a measured daylight loss can change the recommendation.

Where section 38(6) fits

Section 38(6) is the reason the plan is the starting point rather than one factor among many. The decision maker identifies the relevant plan policies, decides whether the proposal accords with the plan read as a whole, and then asks whether other material considerations indicate a different answer.

That sequence matters when you write. An objection or a supporting statement that never names a policy is arguing in the wrong order, and it invites the officer to summarise it in one line. Our explainer on why the local plan comes first works through the sequence with worked policy wording, and the supporting documents a council expects are the place where most of this evidence actually lands.

An illustrative rear extension

Take a 1930s semi in an unconstrained suburb, illustrative only. The owner applies for a 4 metre single-storey rear extension with a flat roof and two rooflights. Twelve neighbours object.

Four objections say the extension will devalue the adjoining house. Not material. Three say it will block a view of the church tower. Not material. Two say the applicant did not tell them in advance. Not material, because publicity is the council's statutory duty, not the applicant's.

Two object on loss of light, with a sketch showing the 45-degree line from the centre of the neighbour's ground-floor window. Material, and weighed properly. One objects that the flat roof is out of character. Material, and weighed against the fact that the extension sits behind the building line and is barely visible from the street.

The officer recommends approval with a condition on materials. The eleven objectors who lost were not ignored. Most of them were arguing about something the council had no power to consider.

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

Working out which arguments belong in a supporting statement is the same exercise in reverse. Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which reports your site is likely to need before you draft anything. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.