Planning Permission - Conditions

Conditions

Planning permissions are usually granted subject to a planning condition which requires the development to be commenced within three years. Typically they will also include a number of other conditions, for example the scheme to be built in accordance with the approved drawings, trees to be planted as per the landscape scheme and replaced if they die in the first few years, or the colour and finish of external materials to be approved by the local authority. Some of these will need to be complied with before any work starts on site; others will take effect once the development is commenced, or later.

Most conditions imposed on a granted planning permission will relate to implementation of works within the actual site of the application (the edges of which must be defined by a red line marked on an accurately scaled map of the site, usually an Ordnance Survey extract, accompanying the application). If there is a need to control aspects of the development which are required to occur outside the defined application site (such as related highway improvements) then the implementation of those aspects can be required by a Grampian condition. This would be worded to the effect that the development being permitted must not be commenced (or must not be occupied, as appropriate), until the required off-site works had been completed.

Planning conditions are imposed to require that something is done or not done by the developer in order to make the development acceptable. Sometimes, planning permission will only be granted subject to the applicant entering into a legal agreement under Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act requiring that certain things be done or money be paid to the local planning authority e.g. to contribute towards the improvement of a highway junction serving the development before the development commences. Such contributions can only be required if they are necessary to make the development acceptable and relate directly to the development proposed.

See Development control in the United Kingdom for an explanation of the general principles which apply to the deciding of planning applications by a local planning authority.