A pre-application enquiry: what to put in it and what to ask

A pre-application enquiry should contain a clear site description with the constraints already identified, drawings at the right level of resolution, and a short numbered list of specific questions you want answered. What you get back is officer advice, not a decision, and it does not bind the authority. Written properly, though, it tells you what the council will argue about, what evidence it expects, and whether the scheme is worth designing in full.

The commonest mistake is treating the enquiry as a submission. It is a conversation with an agenda, and you set the agenda.

What pre-application advice can and cannot give you

It can tell you the officer's view on the principle of development, which policies they consider decisive, which consultees they will approach, and what supporting documents they will expect at validation. It can flag a constraint you missed.

It cannot give you permission, and it does not create a legitimate expectation that permission will follow. Officers change, committees disagree with officers, and consultee responses arrive that nobody predicted. Treat the advice as the best available view on the day, recorded in writing.

That still has weight. An officer report that says the scheme is contrary to a policy the pre-application advice never mentioned is a point you can make, politely, in writing.

Choosing the service level and fee band

Most authorities publish tiered services: a written response only, a written response with a meeting, or a package with follow-up correspondence for larger schemes. Councils charge for this under their general power to charge for discretionary services, and the fee schedules are published.

Pick the level by what you actually need. For a householder scheme in a conservation area, a written response answering three questions is usually enough. For a scheme of 40 homes, pay for the meeting, because the value is in the exchange rather than the letter.

For major development, a planning performance agreement is a different instrument again, setting a timetable and resourcing rather than answering design questions. Do not buy one when a pre-application enquiry would do.

The site description and constraint summary

Do the constraint work before you ask. An enquiry that says "please advise on constraints" invites an officer to send you a list you could have generated yourself, and it uses up goodwill.

Set out, briefly:

• The address, site area and current lawful use, with the planning history references.
• Designations affecting the site: conservation area, listed building and grade, flood zone, Green Belt, National Landscape, Tree Preservation Orders, Article 4 directions.
• The adopted development plan policies you consider relevant, by number.
• Any previous refusal or appeal on the site, with the decision reference and the reasons.
• The constraints you have already checked and ruled out.

Two pages is plenty. The point is to show the officer you have done the groundwork, which changes the quality of the answer you get.

Framing the questions

This is where enquiries succeed or fail. Ask closed, specific questions that can be answered in a sentence each, and number them so the response can be read against them.

Weak question: "Would the council support residential development here?"

Better: "Does the council accept the principle of residential development on this site, given that it lies within the settlement boundary and is not allocated for another use under Policy DM12?"

Weak: "What documents will we need?"

Better: "Beyond the national validation requirements, which local validation items will apply to a full application for eight dwellings on this site, and does the council require a transport statement at this scale?"

Aim for six to ten questions. More than that and the response gets thin. Put the question that decides whether you proceed at number one, because that is the one that always gets a proper answer.

There is one question worth asking on every enquiry regardless of scheme: which consultees will the council approach, and on what. The answer tells you where the programme risk sits. A response naming the lead local flood authority and the county archaeologist means two evidence streams you had not budgeted for, and you would rather know in March than in September.

Avoid asking anything you would not want the answer written down. Officer advice is normally disclosable, and a question that invites the response "the principle is unacceptable" leaves a record that a later objector can request.

Drawings and how finished they should be

Send enough to be understood and not so much that the officer feels presented with a finished scheme. A location plan, an existing site plan, a block plan showing the proposed footprint and access, an indicative storey height and a simple massing sketch or street elevation usually does it.

Fully rendered visuals at pre-application stage tend to backfire. They invite comment on the wrong things, and they make it harder to change the scheme later without looking like you ignored the advice.

Where the question is about the principle of development, drawings can be looser still. Where it is about design in a sensitive setting, be more precise, because an officer cannot comment usefully on a massing block in a conservation area.

Recording the advice and its weight

Read the response against your numbered questions and identify which ones were not answered. Write back once, politely, listing those and asking for a short supplementary answer. Most officers will oblige, and the follow-up email becomes part of the record.

Keep everything: the enquiry, the drawings submitted, the response, the meeting notes and any emails. If a meeting took place, send your own note of it to the officer within a few days and ask them to correct anything they disagree with. An uncorrected note is worth considerably more later than a memory.

Where the advice conflicts with a consultee's later view, the paper trail is what lets you show the design responded to the guidance given.

Using the response in the application

Do not attach the pre-application response as an appendix and leave it there. Work it into the argument.

In the Planning Statement, include a short section that takes each substantive piece of advice and says what the scheme now does about it. Where you have departed from the advice, say so and give the reason. Officers respect a reasoned departure and are irritated by a silent one.

In the Design and Access Statement, show the design evolution: the pre-application massing, the officer comment, and the revised proposal. That sequence is persuasive because it is evidence rather than assertion.

A worked illustration, clearly hypothetical. A pre-application response on a backland site says the council would resist three storeys and wants the access widened to 4.8 metres. The submitted scheme drops to two and a half storeys with rooms in the roof, widens the access, and the planning statement explains both changes with reference to the advice. The officer report writes itself, and that is the point of the exercise.

Draft the supporting documents once the advice is in, using the 66 report types to scope the pack, and enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which of them your site is likely to need.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval. This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.