Permitted development rights and restrictions
Permitted development rights, as their name implies, grant a right to carry out certain types of development without the need to obtain a separate planning permission.
The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995 grants these rights, which are subject to specified conditions and limitations provided for in Article 3, Schedule 2 of the order. Developments permitted in this way are generally of a proportionally small scale and non-controversial.
Permitted development rights are sometimes removed or restricted by placing a condition on a planning permission. These are known as Article 3 conditions and mean that planning permission will need to be obtained for developments that would not normally need formal planning permission. Permitted development rights can also be restricted by what is known as an Article 4 direction.
The legislation in the General Permitted Development Order is very complex, has been amended a number of times and in some cases has been interpreted in different ways by the legal system. We therefore suggest that applicants research the matter thoroughly or, preferably, contact us to discuss their proposals either informally through our Town Planning Advice Centre of formally through our pre-application advice service. We recommend that anyone wishing to undertake development under permitted development rights should obtain a formal ruling from us, in the form of a 'lawful development certificate', before building anything that they consider may be acceptable as permitted development.
Useful Government guidance: