Search the Community

Thought I'd share my experience of this as it's often overlooked in the fight to get planning in the first place. We had a total of 14 conditions to discharge with five pre-commencement conditions, an archeology condition and ground contamination report (we have a basement which likely triggered these last two). The architect practice wanted £15k to work on these along with the Building Control submission so at this point we parted company and I tool them on myself. Quite a few required statements on how we would meet various local policies (sustainable design, lifetime homes) so these were easy enough to do - just obtaining the relevant policy online and replying point by point. We had the usual materials approval and our samples had to be dropped off - I only handed in a roofing slate (a freebie from the local BM) and a render sample. We also had to specify planting (quick google on hedge types) and confirm that we'd comply with the meagre rainwater collection requirements, parking requirements and balcony glass obscurity (these are pre-occupation conditions). We had to produce a site traffic plan, which was pretty easy, and acknowledge a few other restrictions. The longest lead item was the contamination report as we were doing that as part of our ground investigation survey, which itself was a bit of a saga, requiring two visits. We probably could have got away with something cheaper but we did get a very comprehensive report than firmly stated that there were no issues. Then came the big surprise - the amount of time it took to discharge them, a function of our overworked planning team. As there is a fixed fee per submission, not condition, I did them all in one shot and then sat back. Deadlines came and went with very little communication and then the 8 week deadline was exceeded. I emailed the planners to ask what was going on, by this stage you can leverage the planning act to get a default discharge but I held back as I didn't want to antagonise them. When 12 weeks was passed I was less patient and wrote a stiff email, quoting the legislation and asking for a refund of my fee. Low and behold, all conditions were discharged and we were able to start work - I really doubt if they read half of what we submitted.