Two-tier areas: county and district planning functions

In a two-tier area the district or borough council determines your planning application, and the county council controls most of the things that will decide whether it succeeds. Highways, surface water drainage, education contributions, archaeology and minerals safeguarding all sit with the county. None of those teams work to the district's timetable, and none of them report to the case officer handling your file.

Schedule 1 to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 distributes planning functions between the two tiers. The district is the local planning authority for most development. The county is the planning authority for county matters, which in practice means minerals and waste, and it keeps a separate set of functions that bear on ordinary applications without making it the decision maker.

County matters, and what counts as one

County matters are defined in Schedule 1 and cover mineral extraction and related development, and development for the disposal or treatment of waste. If you are applying for a quarry extension, an aggregates processing plant, a transfer station or an anaerobic digestion facility handling waste, the county is your planning authority and the district is a consultee.

Everything else goes to the district. Housing, commercial, industrial, change of use, householder work, listed building consent and advertisement consent are all district business, even on a site next door to a quarry.

The minerals and waste local plan is a county document, and it carries development plan weight alongside the district's local plan. Both are part of the development plan for the purposes of section 38(6) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, which means a housing application on safeguarded minerals land is assessed against a plan the district did not write.

The county functions that shape your application

Read that table once with your own scheme in mind and it will usually show you two or three county consultations you had not planned for.

The lead local flood authority is the one people underestimate. It became a statutory consultee on surface water drainage for major development in 2015, and on a site with any surface water complexity its response is the one that holds a decision. Where a site also sits in a locally defined drainage area, the authority's own mapping is the starting point, which is why checking critical drainage areas locally belongs in the feasibility stage rather than the application stage. A proportionate Drainage Strategy answering the authority's published standards is the single most effective way to shorten that consultation.

Education contributions are the other reliable surprise. County formulas are published, they are based on pupil yield per dwelling by bedroom count and on the capacity of catchment schools, and they produce numbers that can move a viability position. Ask the county for the calculation before you fix the mix.

Where the money goes

In a two-tier area the district is the charging authority for the Community Infrastructure Levy. It sets the charging schedule, issues liability and demand notices, and collects. The county is not a charging authority and receives levy funding through the district's spending decisions.

That split has a practical consequence. County infrastructure, including school places and highway improvements, is usually funded through planning obligations under section 106 rather than the levy, which is why county officers press for obligations even where a levy is in place. The pooling restriction that once limited obligations for the same infrastructure was removed, so an authority can seek both, subject to the usual tests of necessity, direct relation and reasonable relation to scale and kind.

Both tiers now report on what they collected and spent through infrastructure funding statements, and reading them tells you a great deal about what an authority will ask for. The detail of where the money went is public, and so are the monitoring fees each tier charges for administering an agreement. County monitoring fees sit on top of district ones on an agreement with two authority parties.

The sequence that saves time

1. Identify the authorities before anything else: district as planning authority, county as highway and flood authority, parish or town council as consultee, and any National Park authority or development corporation that covers the site.
2. Book pre-application advice with the district, and separately with county highways, because the county charges for and schedules its own service.
3. Ask the county for the education contribution calculation and the highway standards that will apply, in writing.
4. Check the minerals and waste local plan for safeguarding designations over your site, not just the district local plan.
5. Check whether a made neighbourhood plan covers the site, since it forms part of the development plan too, and checking whether one covers your site takes minutes.
6. Build the county consultation periods into your programme rather than assuming the statutory eight or thirteen weeks absorbs them.

Step two is where most of the available time is won. A county highways officer who has seen the access arrangement before submission will usually say what they want, and the cost of asking is a fraction of the cost of a refusal and resubmission.

Be realistic about the limits of coordination. The case officer cannot compel a county response, and in a stretched authority a highways or drainage response can take longer than the determination period allows, which is how extensions of time become routine. Agreeing an extension is often the better outcome, and it is worth asking what is outstanding before you agree one.

Enforcement, and who does it

Enforcement for ordinary development sits with the district, which also handles complaints about unauthorised work and breaches of condition. Counties enforce in relation to minerals and waste. Highways enforcement, including unauthorised works in the public highway, is a county function under the Highways Act 1980 and runs separately from planning enforcement.

Which body to approach depends on what has happened, and the published priorities differ between tiers. District practice on enforcement complaints and priorities is usually set out in a local enforcement plan, which you should read before reporting anything.

Reorganisation, and checking which structure applies

England's local government map is moving. A number of former two-tier areas have become unitary authorities over the last decade, and further reorganisation has been under discussion, with new unitary councils and combined authority arrangements at various stages. As at 13 October 2026, do not assume the structure you remember still applies to a county you have not worked in recently.

Check three things on the council's own website. Whether the authority describes itself as a unitary or a district, which authority holds the highway function for the road your site fronts, and whether a minerals and waste plan still sits with a separate authority. Where a unitary council has been created, the functions consolidate, though the teams often remain distinct for a long time afterwards.

National Park authorities are the local planning authority within their boundaries while the county remains the highway authority. Development corporations may hold planning powers over a defined area with the county or unitary keeping highways. In each case, ask who writes the response rather than who sends the letter.

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 see which reports your site is likely to need, including the drainage and transport documents the county will look for. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.