Supplying planning history rather than a postcode

A postcode tells a drafting tool about flood zones, listed buildings, conservation areas and designated sites. It tells it nothing about the 1987 condition that restricts the unit to retail, the 2004 condition that removed householder permitted development rights across the whole estate, or the appeal dismissed in 2019 for reasons that still apply. Planning history is held on one system only, the authority's own register, and it has to be supplied rather than inferred. A planning history AI draft is only as good as the schedule of permissions you give it.

This is the single biggest difference between a usable first draft and one that has to be rewritten.

Why history changes the advice a draft can give

Article 3(4) of the General Permitted Development Order says that nothing in the Order permits development contrary to a condition imposed on a planning permission granted otherwise than by the Order. In plain terms: a condition on an earlier permission can remove permitted development rights, and no amount of checking the Order will reveal it.

So two sites with identical constraints, identical postcodes and identical proposals can need entirely different applications. One needs a prior approval. The other needs a full application plus a section 73 application to vary a condition imposed forty years ago.

A draft prepared without the history will describe the first situation, correctly, and be wrong. That is worse than a draft with a gap in it, because the error is invisible to a client and plausible to a planning officer right up to the point of refusal. Our note on what drafts get right about structure and wrong about evidence covers the general pattern, and history is the sharpest example of it.

Finding every application on a site

Start with the authority's public access register, and search it twice: once by address and once by map or polygon, because applications are indexed by the address as given on the form and a plot that has been renamed or subdivided will not come up.

Then widen the search.

1. Search the parent address and the neighbouring plots. An estate permission from the 1970s covering 48 houses sits under one reference and one address, and the conditions bind every plot.
2. Ask for a file search of paper records. Digital registers typically begin in the 1990s or later, and older decisions exist as files. Authorities will usually search for a fee and some will scan on request.
3. Check the local land charges register, which records enforcement notices, section 106 agreements, Article 4 directions and tree preservation orders.
4. Read the conveyancing searches if the client has them. The local authority search answers questions about planning history and enforcement that would otherwise take weeks.
5. Check the Planning Inspectorate's casework records for appeals, which are not always reflected on the authority's register.
6. Ask the client. Owners remember refusals, and a previous agent's file is often the quickest route to a reference number.

Record the references as you go, because the drafted document needs them and a reference without a date is not a citation.

Conditions that still bite

Pull the full decision notice for every permission, not the summary on the register. Summaries routinely omit conditions and almost always omit the reasons, and the reason is what tells you how a condition will be interpreted.

Occupancy conditions are the ones with the longest reach, because they can make a lawfully built house unsellable to an ordinary buyer. An agricultural occupancy condition from 1981 is still enforceable, and lifting it needs evidence that there is no longer a need for the dwelling in the locality, which is a marketing exercise rather than a planning argument.

Permitted development rights removed by condition

This is the check most often skipped, and it accounts for a fair share of enforcement cases against homeowners who did everything right.

The wording varies. "No extensions or alterations shall be carried out to the dwellinghouse without the prior written consent of the local planning authority." "Notwithstanding the provisions of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order, no development within Classes A to E of Part 1 of Schedule 2 shall be carried out." Both remove rights, and both survive the subsequent reissues and amendments of the Order.

A condition is only effective in removing rights if it is clear and precise enough to do so. A condition expressed as a general aspiration has been held insufficient, while one that names the classes is not open to doubt. If the wording is marginal, settle it with an application under section 192 for a certificate that the proposed development is lawful rather than relying on an opinion.

Where a condition does remove the right, the application needed because of it attracts no fee. Two useful consequences follow: the client pays less, and the authority has to determine an application it would rather not receive.

Refusals, appeals and what their reasons fix

A previous refusal is a material consideration and its reasons are a free scoping exercise. Read them as a list of obstacles with a cost attached to each.

An appeal decision is more valuable still, because an inspector's reasoning tells you which arguments were accepted and which were not on that site. It is indicative of how the issue has been approached rather than binding precedent, and the authority will treat it as settling the point until circumstances change.

The two circumstances that change the position are a new development plan and a material change in the proposal. A resubmission that addresses the reasons for refusal, point by point, with the change identified against each reason, is the submission officers find easiest to recommend. The reverse is a resubmission that argues the previous decision was wrong, which rarely works and annoys the case officer. Validation problems are a separate matter, and our note on why planning applications are returned as invalid covers those.

Enforcement notices and certificates

Enforcement notices are recorded on a public register and they run with the land. A notice from 1998 requiring the removal of an outbuilding is still live if it was never complied with, and the breach of it is an offence.

Certificates of lawful use or development are also on the register and they are the most useful documents on it, because a certificate settles the lawful use conclusively. Where one exists, the drafted document should cite it by reference and date and rely on it rather than reconstructing the argument.

Look for stop notices, temporary stop notices and breach of condition notices as well. A breach of condition notice is the authority's quickest remedy and there is no appeal against it, so its existence tells you how the authority views the site.

Putting the history into a drafted document

Supply the history as a table rather than as narrative, because that is the form a drafting tool can use without ambiguity. Five columns: reference, decision date, description as given on the decision notice, decision, and the conditions that still bite with their numbers.

Then add two lines of your own judgement for each entry: why it matters to this proposal, and whether anything about it has changed. That judgement cannot be drafted for you and it is what turns a schedule into a planning argument.

PlanScope inserts a flag where a fact is missing rather than inventing it, which is the behaviour to want here. A Planning Statement drafted without the history will carry flags where the history should be, and filling them with the table above produces a document that stands up. Keeping track of which version carries which facts matters once sections are regenerated, as our note on version control when report sections are regenerated sets out.

Budget the file search and the time to read the notices as part of the fee, not as an overhead. See PlanScope pricing for the drafting side: one free report, £50 per report, or £150 per month for unlimited reports on the Professional tier.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. A Lawful Development Certificate is the only formal way to confirm that works or a use are lawful. 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.