Neat Living’s Planning and Building Warrant Services

As part of our One-Stop Shop solution, we undertake the essential work around preparing for the necessary statutory approvals. Typically, the necessary approvals include being granted planning permission and the building warrant. 

Preparing and Applying for Planning Permission

We provide a planning and building warrant service to help self-build customers obtain the necessary statutory approvals for their site. 

In practice, the process of achieving these approvals is staged, which also means that you only pay as the design progresses!

1. Pre-application for Planning

We start with creating a site and location plan, plus the building floor plan (s) and elevations. To provide the local authority (LA) with sufficient context about the proposal we will prepare an Initial Design and Access Statement, which is site-specific and provides the planner with information to assess the proposal. This package of information is submitted to the LA and usually, a detailed, written response is obtained in four to six weeks.

The LA response is usually really valuable and this two-stage approach allows for any of their comments to be reflected in the subsequent full application.

2. Full Application for Planning

A full application requires a higher level of detail and information than a pre-application. In addition to the comprehensive details about the design of the building, the LA will also be seeking information about the civil engineering design, such as the foundation, below-ground and surface water drainage.

As part of this stage, typically a topographical survey is carried out and trial pits of the ground, samples of the ground and analysis of the bearing capacity of the ground are obtained. In other words, the details of the foundation cannot be fully determined until these reports, etc., are obtained. (For further information, see our page – Topographical Survey and Ground Investigation Survey). Once these have been obtained, the foundation design and therefore the cost can be determined.

Finally, once all of the information has been collected and the design completed, the full application for planning can be submitted to the LA. Typically the response time for the LA to respond is six to eight weeks.

Building Warrant

The building warrant is a separate and entirely different statutory approval. The warrant process differs slightly across the UK but the eventual outcome is broadly the same.

It sometimes surprises clients that there is probably more work involved in the warrant than there is with the design and planning stage. This is because it requires inputs from a variety of disciplines – architecture, structural and services – i.e. plumbing, heating, electrical, so those elements of the design must be completed before the warrant can be submitted.

An interesting point is that, unlike planning which can be somewhat subjective, a warrant is only concerned with compliance with building standards – so long as the design is compliant, then the warrant will be issued.

The submission of the warrant application and the issue of the building warrant is a vital milestone and enables work to start on site.

The above described staged process is a way we generally progress planning and building warrants. Individual clients wishes, sites or situations may influence an alternative strategy.