Removing a permitted development condition by section 73

If your planning permission carries a condition that says no development under Schedule 2 Part 1 of the GPDO shall be carried out without planning permission, you cannot build the shed, the porch or the rear extension you assumed you could. The route to removing it is an application under section 73 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, and the council has to consider only the question of that condition.

That last point is the useful one. A section 73 remove PD condition application is not a fresh assessment of the house. It is a narrow argument about whether one condition is still necessary.

What section 73 can change and what it cannot

Section 73 lets you apply for planning permission for the same development without complying with a condition attached to an earlier permission. The authority either grants a new permission free of that condition, grants it with the condition in different terms, or refuses, in which case the original permission and its condition stand untouched.

Two limits catch people out. Section 73 cannot be used to extend the time limit for implementing a permission. And it cannot change the description of the development itself, so if what you really want is a bigger extension than the one approved, this is the wrong form.

Section 73B of the 1990 Act, inserted by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, would allow minor variations including to the description of development. As at September 2026 you should check on legislation.gov.uk whether it has been brought into force and what regulations sit under it before relying on it, because the position has moved more than once.

Finding out whether the condition is even valid

Before arguing that a condition should go, read it properly. Conditions have to be necessary, relevant to planning, relevant to the development permitted, enforceable, precise and reasonable in all other respects. The Planning Practice Guidance on the use of planning conditions goes further on permitted development rights specifically: removing them should be exceptional and needs clear justification recorded at the time.

So the first question is what justification the council gave. Pull the original decision notice and the officer's delegated report from the council's public register. If the report says nothing about why the rights were removed, or repeats a standard paragraph with no reference to the site, you have a starting point.

Three situations produce these conditions most often. New housing estates, where the council wanted to control cumulative erosion of amenity space and parking. Conversions, including Class Q barn conversions, where the permission is tightly drawn to the original building. And infill plots with small gardens, where further extension would leave too little outdoor space.

The estate case is the one most often worth challenging. The conversion case rarely is.

Evidence that supports removal

Councils respond to specific material, not to the observation that the condition is inconvenient.

Show what has changed since the permission was granted. Fifteen years of occupation without amenity problems, a boundary treatment that has matured, or a neighbouring property that has since built the very thing your condition forbids all go to whether the condition is still necessary.

Show what the rights would actually allow. A drawing of the largest outbuilding or extension the GPDO would permit on your plot, with the remaining garden area calculated, converts an abstract worry into a measurable one. If the worst case is modest, say so and show it.

Address the original reason head on. If the reason was parking, give the current on-plot provision and the dimensions. If it was garden space, give the area in square metres before and after. And read the class you actually want, because curtilage and principal elevation questions under Class A decide what the rights would give you in the first place.

A short Planning Statement that sets out the condition, the original reason, what has changed and the worst case is usually enough. This is not a document that benefits from length.

The new permission that comes back

Grant of a section 73 application produces a new planning permission. The original one continues to exist, which means you end up with two permissions for the same development on different terms, and you implement whichever you choose.

The new permission should carry forward the conditions from the original that are still needed. Check the decision notice carefully when it arrives, because two things go wrong here. Conditions can be dropped by accident, which sounds helpful until a mortgage lender's solicitor asks why the approved drawings are not referenced. And conditions can come back in tighter form than before.

Read every condition on the new notice against the old one and query anything that has changed and should not have.

Other conditions and any section 106 agreement

A section 106 agreement does not automatically bind the new permission. If your original permission was tied to an obligation, the deed has to be checked and often varied so that it attaches to the section 73 permission as well. On a householder scheme this is rare. On anything that came out of an estate-wide permission it is not.

Community Infrastructure Levy liability can also be recalculated on the new permission. For a householder extension the residential extension exemption usually applies, but it has to be claimed before work starts, and claiming it late is not fixable.

Fees, forms and how long it takes

The application is made on the Planning Portal using the form for removal or variation of a condition. There is a set fee, indexed annually, so check the current fee schedule rather than a figure quoted on a forum. Where the application concerns a householder development the fee is modest.

Expect eight weeks for determination as a minor application, and expect the usual 21 day neighbour consultation period. Neighbours can comment, and on a condition that was imposed to protect them, they often will.

If the council refuses, the appeal route is the same as for any refusal, and for householder development the shorter householder appeal procedure applies.

When a fresh application is the better route

Three cases where section 73 is the wrong tool.

You want something larger or different from what the permitted development rights would have allowed anyway. Apply for planning permission for that specific thing, with drawings. You get a decision on the actual proposal rather than a decision about a condition, and the council can grant it without reopening the estate-wide policy question.

The original permission has been fully implemented and the development completed, and there is some doubt about whether section 73 remains available. Taking express permission for the works removes the argument.

The condition is one of several restrictions and you need more than one lifted. A single full application covering the whole proposal is usually cleaner than a stack of separate variations, and it costs less in fees than people expect.

One thing worth doing either way. If you think the works fall outside the condition entirely, for example because what you want to build is not development at all, a lawful development certificate is the only formal way to confirm that works are lawful. Do not rely on a builder's view, and do not rely on ours. And if you are unsure whether a garden building is caught, the question of when a garden office stops being incidental to the house is the one to settle first.

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

Enter your postcode on PlanScope to draft the supporting statement for a condition variation and see what else the council is likely to ask for. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.