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Pre-application advice

Strategic development advice

Your work will be a strategic development if it’s for:

  • 50 or more residential units
  • 5,000 plus square metres floor space
  • a development on a site of 2 or more hectares (including any change of use of land or buildings)
  • a proposal for a development requiring Environmental Assessment (EA)

Pre-application advice for strategic developments

The advice will include both preliminary and full advice.

Preliminary advice will include:

  • whether the principle of the proposal is acceptable
  • limited internal consultation
  • a planning history search

For preliminary advice, you can expect a response within 30 working days by phone or face to face.

Full advice will include:

  • details of any legal designations and limitations that affect the site
  • key planning policy context and assessment of the scheme against planning policy
  • identification of any other material considerations
  • potential development contributions
  • a summary of possible changes that may be needed to improve the scheme and, if possible, overcome objections
  • identification of areas within the pre-application scheme that may need addressing or amending
  • conclusion as to the likelihood of the scheme being accepted

Expectations for full pre-application advice

For full advice, you can expect a meeting in office or on site in which:

  • your enquiry will be registered, and within 5 working days you will be contacted; either more information will be needed or the enquiry will have been registered, along with the details of the case.
  • a meeting with officers will be offered within 10 working days
  • a meeting will take place within 20 working days of registration or within an agreed timescale
  • we will provide the notes from the meeting within 20 days