What must be submitted before work starts on site

Before work starts on site you need the pre-commencement conditions discharged, the biodiversity gain plan approved where one is required, the levy paperwork submitted in the right order, and building control approval in place. Miss any of them and the consequences range from a surcharge you cannot appeal to a development that is unlawful from the first spadeful. For a self-builder on a single plot the whole sequence takes weeks rather than days, and most of it can run in parallel if you start early.

The costly mistakes are almost always administrative. Levy exemptions lost because a form went in a day late. A start on site that turns out not to be lawful because a condition was outstanding.

Pre-commencement conditions come first

Read the decision notice and separate the conditions into three groups. Those requiring something before any development starts. Those requiring something before a later stage, such as work above ground level or first occupation. And those which are simply standing obligations for the life of the permission.

The first group controls your start date. Typical examples are a construction management plan, details of materials, an arboricultural method statement, a drainage scheme, a contaminated land investigation, or an archaeological written scheme of investigation.

Discharge applications carry a fee for each request, and one written request covering several conditions costs less than several separate ones. Allow eight weeks, because the statutory period for determining a discharge application is not short and authorities use it. Submitting on week one of an eight-week lead-in to your groundworks contractor is how programmes survive.

A written confirmation of discharge is what you need on file, not an informal email saying the details look fine.

The biodiversity gain plan

Where your permission carries the biodiversity gain condition, approval of the gain plan is a precondition of a lawful start. Submitting it alongside the first load of hardcore is too late.

The plan has to be approved, not merely submitted, and the local planning authority has a period in which to determine it. Whether the condition applies at all turns on when the application was made and on the exemptions, and householder development and qualifying self-build schemes sit outside the requirement. Check that first, because commissioning metric work you do not need is an expensive detour.

Community Infrastructure Levy forms in the right order

The levy sequence is the part that punishes people, and it punishes them financially rather than legally.

The order matters:

1. Submit the assumption of liability form, ideally with or shortly after the planning application. Someone has to assume liability, and if nobody does, liability defaults to the landowner.
2. Claim any exemption or relief before you start. Self-build exemption, residential extension exemption and annexe exemption all have to be applied for and granted in advance.
3. Wait for the council to issue the liability notice, and check the figures on it against the charging schedule.
4. Submit the commencement notice before work begins, giving the date you intend to start.
5. Keep the demand notice and pay in accordance with it, or in accordance with any instalment policy the authority operates.

Step four is where self-builders lose exemptions. An exemption granted but followed by a start on site with no commencement notice submitted can be withdrawn, and the full charge becomes payable with a surcharge. There is no discretion to forgive it in the way a planning officer might overlook a late document. What happens if you miss the commencement notice repays a read before you book the digger, and the liability notice and surcharge mechanics explain how the numbers build up.

Self-build exemption has a second stage as well. The initial claim comes before commencement, and supporting evidence has to be submitted within a set period after completion, so the obligation does not end when the roof goes on.

Building control approval

Planning permission and building control are separate systems with separate submissions, and one does not imply the other.

For a single dwelling you either make a building control approval application to the local authority or have an initial notice given by a registered building control approver. Either way the submission has to be in place before work starts, and the authority or approver will want a programme of inspection stages.

Where the project is a higher-risk building, the regime is different again and sits with the Building Safety Regulator rather than the local authority. A house is outside that regime. Residential buildings at or above the height threshold set by the building safety legislation are within it.

Consents outside the planning system

Several permissions have nothing to do with the council's planning department and are commonly forgotten.

A vehicle crossing over the footway needs the highway authority's approval under the Highways Act 1980, and the works are usually carried out by or on behalf of that authority rather than by your builder. Skips, scaffolding and hoardings on the highway need licences. A connection to the public sewer needs an application to the sewerage undertaker, and building over or close to a public sewer needs a separate agreement with it. Works affecting a party structure, or excavation within the distances the legislation specifies of a neighbouring building, need notice under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996, and on dissent an award.

Tree work is its own trap. Where a tree is protected by a preservation order or stands in a conservation area, consent or notification is needed even if the planning permission shows the tree being removed, unless the permission expressly authorises it.

Evidence of a lawful start

Development begins on the earliest date on which a material operation is carried out, and for a permission approaching the end of its life that date can matter enormously.

Keep evidence. Dated photographs of the works from a fixed viewpoint. The contractor's invoices and daywork records. The building control inspection record. Delivery notes for materials. Correspondence confirming discharge of the pre-commencement conditions before that date.

The reason to assemble this at the time rather than later is that a start on site with an outstanding pre-commencement condition may not count as lawful commencement at all, which on a permission nearing expiry can leave you with nothing. Commencement notices and what developers tell the council covers the notification side, and the position appears on the statutory planning register once the council records it.

A workable sequence for a small site

Work backwards from the date your groundworker can start.

Twelve weeks out, read the conditions, submit the discharge application and claim any levy exemption. Ten weeks out, submit the assumption of liability and, where required, the biodiversity gain plan. Eight weeks out, make the building control submission and apply for the vehicle crossing and any highway licences. Six weeks out, serve party wall notices, since the notice periods are fixed and dissent adds time. Two weeks out, confirm discharge in writing and submit the commencement notice. Then start, and photograph the first day.

Getting the documents right at application stage makes all of this shorter, because conditions are often imposed simply because the information was not supplied earlier. A well-evidenced Planning Statement and the technical reports a constrained site needs will reduce the number of pre-commencement conditions you have to discharge later. Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which of the 66 reports your site is likely to need.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. 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.