Neighbourhood development orders and community rights

A neighbourhood development order grants planning permission. That one sentence separates it from everything else the neighbourhood planning system produces, and it is the point most guidance buries. A neighbourhood plan, once made, forms part of the development plan and shapes how applications are decided. An order does the deciding in advance. Development that falls within its terms can proceed without any further application to the council.

The tools came in together, through the Localism Act 2011, which inserted the machinery into the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Communities have used one of them heavily and the other almost not at all, and the reasons for that are worth understanding before a group sets out down either road.

What an order can permit

An order specifies development and grants permission for it within a designated neighbourhood area. The specification has to be precise enough to work as a permission, which means a described site or sites, a described type and scale of development, and conditions.

Typical subjects are modest and local. A defined infill site for a handful of homes. Conversion of redundant agricultural buildings within a village envelope. Shopfront alterations within a defined frontage. Small workshop units on a brownfield parcel the community wants brought back into use.

There are limits. An order cannot grant permission for development requiring environmental impact assessment, and other statutory exclusions apply, so a group with an ambitious site in mind should check the position before committing time. Where the area contains or adjoins a protected habitats site, a habitats regulations assessment may be needed for the order itself, in the same way it would be for a plan.

The examination and referendum

The process mirrors neighbourhood plan making, with the same steps in the same order.

1. The neighbourhood area is designated by the local planning authority.
2. The qualifying body prepares a draft order with a statement of its terms and consults on it.
3. The draft is submitted to the authority, publicised and then examined by an independent examiner.
4. The examiner considers whether the basic conditions are met, including regard to national policy, contribution to sustainable development, general conformity with the strategic policies of the development plan and compliance with other statutory requirements.
5. If the examiner is satisfied, the order goes to a referendum of the local electorate.
6. A simple majority of those voting carries it, and the authority then makes the order.

Two features of this list cause most of the difficulty. The examination tests conformity with strategic policy, so an order proposing development the local plan has ruled out will struggle. And the referendum means the group has to carry its neighbours, which is a different exercise from drafting a document.

Community right to build orders

A community right to build order is a variant with a different promoter. Instead of a parish council or forum, it is brought forward by a community organisation whose membership is drawn mainly from the area and whose profits are applied for the benefit of that community.

The idea was to let a community land trust or similar body deliver a small scheme, typically affordable housing or a community building, without a conventional application. It carries the same examination and referendum requirements, with some procedural differences.

In practice the two routes are used by the same sorts of groups for the same sorts of projects, and a group choosing between them should take advice on which fits its constitution and its site.

Why so few have been made

Thousands of neighbourhood areas have been designated and many plans have been made. Orders are a much smaller number, and the reasons are practical rather than legal.

An order has to describe the development precisely, which means someone has to have designed it. That requires a site with a willing owner, a layout, and enough technical work to support conditions. By the time a group has assembled all of that, it has done most of the work of a planning application, and a landowner with a designed scheme usually prefers to apply in the ordinary way and keep control of the timetable.

There is also a risk asymmetry. An application that is refused can be appealed. An order that fails at examination or referendum leaves the group with nothing and no route of challenge worth pursuing. Volunteer groups understandably prefer the tool that sets policy and keeps the risk with applicants.

And the plan route already delivers a great deal. A well-drafted plan can set settlement boundaries, allocate sites, and set design requirements that bind decisions. For most communities that is enough.

One practical consequence is worth spelling out. Because an order grants permission, the conditions it carries are the only control the authority will have over what gets built. Drafting those conditions is therefore the most important part of the work, and it is the part volunteer groups find hardest. Conditions have to be precise, enforceable and related to the development, and a condition that fails those tests can be struck out, leaving a permission broader than anyone intended.

What a group needs to do it properly

Be honest about the resources before starting.

A steering group with the time to see a two to three year process through. Professional support for the drafting, because an order is a legal instrument and imprecise drafting produces an unusable permission. Evidence proportionate to what is proposed, which for anything beyond the smallest scheme means the same technical inputs a planning application would need. Funding, which is usually a mix of authority support and grant. And a landowner committed in writing, because an order granting permission over land nobody will release achieves nothing.

The authority has a duty to support neighbourhood planning, and the level of that support varies. Ask early and in writing what the authority will provide, including whether it will fund the examination and referendum.

If you are working out which technical documents a proposed scheme would need before the drafting starts, look at the supporting documents an application needs and scope from there.

There is one more resource worth naming. Authorities that have supported an order through to a referendum have usually published the whole evidence trail, from the first consultation statement to the examiner's report. Reading a completed set from another area is the fastest way for a steering group to see what the examination will ask of them, and it costs nothing. Two afternoons spent on that material will save a year of drafting in the wrong direction.

Where an order is made, the authority publishes it with a decision statement setting out its reasons. That statement is the document to read first, because it records what the authority accepted and what it did not.

Checking whether one is in force

Start with the authority's neighbourhood planning pages, which should list every designated area, every made plan and any order. Cross-check against the national planning data service, which publishes neighbourhood planning datasets alongside other planning designations.

If an order applies, read it in full with its conditions. Permission granted by an order is still conditional permission, and works outside its terms need a conventional application. If you want to check what a specific site would need, start from your postcode and work through the constraints that apply to it.

This is general guidance rather than 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.