When a scheme is built differently from the approved plans

When a building goes up looking different from the drawings you objected to, the first thing to establish is what was actually approved, because the answer is often not the drawings you saw during consultation. A later non-material amendment or a section 73 application may have changed them, and those applications appear on the register with their own references and, in the case of non-material amendments, usually without any consultation at all.

Development has to be carried out in accordance with the approved plans, because almost every permission carries a condition listing the drawing numbers. Building something different is a breach of that condition, which is a civil planning matter rather than a criminal one until a notice has been served and ignored.

Checking what was actually approved

Go to the council's planning register and work through the file in order.

The decision notice names the approved drawings by number and revision in the approved plans condition. Then look for anything that came afterwards: an application under section 96A for a non-material amendment, an application under section 73 to vary a condition, discharge of conditions applications, and any separate permission for the same site. Each of those can change what is approved.

Download the drawings rather than viewing them. Revision letters matter, and the version in the register under the original reference may have been superseded.

There is a separate piece on whether neighbours are reconsulted on amended plans, and the answer turns on which of those routes was used.

Minor deviations and the tolerance officers apply

There is no statutory tolerance. In practice officers apply judgement, and they distinguish between things that affect the planning merits and things that do not.

A brick a shade different from the approved sample, a rainwater pipe moved, a door swapped for one of the same proportions: these rarely attract action. A window added to a flank elevation facing a neighbour, a roof raised, a balcony where none was approved, a building moved two metres closer to a boundary: these go to the heart of why conditions were imposed, and they are treated accordingly.

The useful question when reporting something is not whether the building differs from the drawings. It is which planning harm the difference causes. An officer deciding whether to act is applying a test of expediency, and a report that identifies the harm gives them something to act on.

Reporting a departure from the approved plans

Enforcement teams work from complaints, and the quality of the complaint affects the response.

1. Give the site address and the planning reference, and name the approved drawing number you are comparing against.
2. Say precisely what differs, with dimensions where you can estimate them, rather than "it looks bigger".
3. Attach dated photographs taken from a public vantage point or your own property.
4. Identify the harm: loss of privacy from a new window, loss of light, loss of a screening hedge the landscape condition required.
5. Ask for a case reference and the name of the officer.

Enforcement is discretionary. A council is not obliged to act, and it will weigh whether action is expedient in the public interest. That is a lawful position rather than an evasion, and it is why identifying harm matters more than identifying difference. For what happens next, see how to get an update on an enforcement case.

Retrospective applications and what they change

A developer who has built something different can apply under section 73A for permission for development already carried out. That application is publicised like any other, so you get a consultation period and a chance to object on the merits.

This is often the best outcome for a neighbour, counter-intuitive as it feels. The alternative, enforcement, is slow and discretionary. A retrospective application puts the departure in front of the authority with a decision to make, and if it is refused the developer faces enforcement with the authority's position already stated.

Watch the description of development. A retrospective application that describes the building as approved rather than as built understates what is being asked for, and pointing that out in an objection is legitimate and effective.

Section 73 and section 96A used after the event

Both are legitimate tools and both are sometimes used to regularise what has already been built.

Section 96A covers non-material amendments only. What counts as non-material is for the authority to judge, and there is no third-party consultation requirement, which is why residents discover changes after the fact. The authority cannot use it to change the description of the development.

Section 73 varies or removes a condition, including the approved plans condition, and produces a new permission. It is normally publicised, so there is a route to comment. Where a change is material, section 73 or a fresh application is the correct route and section 96A is not, and an objection can properly say so.

Where a breach of condition notice is the remedy

For a breach of the approved plans condition, the direct remedy is a breach of condition notice under the enforcement provisions of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. It requires compliance with the condition within a stated period. There is no appeal to the Planning Inspectorate against one, which is what makes it effective, and failure to comply is an offence prosecuted in the magistrates' court.

An enforcement notice is the other instrument, used for unauthorised development more broadly, and it does carry a right of appeal. That appeal can take many months, and the development usually stays where it is while it runs. There is a fuller account in what breach of condition notices achieve.

Time limits matter. Unauthorised building work and breaches of condition become immune from enforcement after a period, and the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 extended the shorter of those periods in England, so check when that change took effect before assuming anything about a development completed some years ago.

Keeping photographic evidence with dates

Evidence decides these cases, and it is easy to gather badly.

Photograph from the same position each time, so the sequence shows progress. Include something fixed in frame for scale. Keep the original files with their metadata rather than cropped copies pasted into a document. Note the date and time in a written log alongside the photographs, because metadata can be questioned. Stay on public land or your own property.

One further route is worth knowing about. Where a council declines to act and you believe it has failed to follow its own procedures, the complaints process and then the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman can examine how the decision was made, though neither can order the building changed. The Ombudsman looks at maladministration rather than at planning merits, so frame any complaint around process.

And start early. The most useful photographs in these cases are the ones taken before the works were complete, when the departure was visible in the structure rather than hidden behind cladding.

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