Pre-application Planning Advice

 

We are able to provide you with advice and information if you are considering a development proposal, and we encourage and welcome discussions before you submit a planning application – whatever it is for. 

 

Pre-Application Advice is promoted through Government guidance - Planning Policy Statement 1:

 

"Pre-application discussions are critically important and benefit both developers and local planning authorities in ensuring a better mutual understanding of objectives and the constraints that exist. In the course of such discussions proposals can be adapted to ensure that they better reflect community aspirations and that applications are complete and address all the relevant issues. Local planning authorities and applicants should take a

positive attitude towards early engagement in pre-application discussions so that formal applications can be dealt with in a more certain and speedy manner and the quality of decisions can be better assured."

 

The benefits to you are:

 

It gives you an opportunity to understand how our policies will be applied to your development and you can identify potential problems and sort them out before an application is submitted. This can help prevent costly and time-consuming amendments to schemes later;

• It may indicate that a proposal has little or no realistic chance of success, thus saving you considerable time and money;
• It may lead to a reduction in time spent by your professional advisers in working up the proposals in more detail;
• It can identify at an early stage whether any specialist advice is necessary- for example about listed buildings, trees, landscape, transport, ecology or archaeology; and
• We can discuss with you details of the proposal, such as its design and the materials to be used. This can help you prepare a better planning application so we can process it more quickly and give you a decision sooner.

General advice

Our pre-application advice service is offered both to developers and householders. In either case there are some general points which you should take into account before you contact us:

 

Try to contact us at the earliest reasonable opportunity in your project:

• Undertake some initial research yourself;
• Sound out the views of those that may be affected by your proposals;
• Remember the more information you can give us, the more accurate and helpful our response can be – vague proposals will receive only vague advice. The key to the success of this service will be providing adequate information in advance – this is set out in more detail in the documents mentioned above; and
• On complex issues be prepared to seek private professional help – our service is not intended to be an alternative to employing professional consultants.
• Secured by Design. Crime has now been highlighted as a green issue and advice can be found in the Carbon Cost of Crime and Your Home.

 

Details of our pre–application planning advice service

 

Please note that the VAT percentage rate changes from 17.5% to 20% with effect from 4th January 2011. The revised fees are set out below:

 

 

A meeting may be required for small or Minor applications but will always be required for Major proposals. Major proposals are those for:

• 10 residential units or more;
• Residential sites of 0.5ha or more;
• The creation or change of use of 1,000m2 or more of non-residential floor space; and

• All sites of more than 1 ha in size.

 

Please see below for more information on how to book a meeting.

 

Research of Permitted Development Rights and Planning Histories

This provides confirmation of whether or not permitted development rights have been removed from a dwelling. You may need to know this to confirm if planning permission is required or not.

 

Research on Permitted Development Rights: £36 (£30 + VAT) 

• Research on Planning Histories: £36 (£30 + VAT)
• If no research is required there will be no fee but photocopying charges may be required.

 

What the costs cover

These fees cover administration costs and the time spent in research, assessment, a meeting as necessary, and in making a written response.

Any request for written advice must be accompanied by the relevant fee otherwise advice cannot be provided. Each project or separate site referred to in an enquiry will charged at the appropriate rate.

 

The charge for a meeting must be paid in advance of the meeting, no meeting will be booked until the fee has been paid.  The fee will cover research based on the information provided, attendance at the meeting by a Planning Officer and written advice following the meeting.

 

What matters can be covered in the pre-application advice service?

• Planning history of the site;
• Statutory designations applying to the site, such as conservation areas, listed buildings, AONB, protected trees and SSSIs;
• Relevant planning policies applying to the site, together with other planning and technical requirements such as car parking and open space standards;
• The forms, plans and supporting information necessary to provide a valid planning application;
• Advice regarding the procedure, consultation arrangements and estimated timescale for processing the application;
• Advice on other statutory consents that may be required and how they relate to the planning process;
• Provision of appropriate contacts necessary for any other pre-application consultation and scheme preparation eg. Highways, nature conservation, etc;
• Any likely requirements for developer contributions to the infrastructure necessary to support the proposed development, for example affordable housing, open space, accessibility and education provision;
• Informal, and without prejudice, comments on the content, preparation and presentation of an application likely to satisfy the council’s planning policies;
• The provision of copies of any relevant documents, subject to the Council’s standard copying charges; and
• Where requested, a pre-registration check of any proposed planning application, including an assessment of any application fees.

What you need to do

If your enquiry is very straightforward, and is one where free advice is provided, you can telephone us, write to us, or call in to our offices  We will normally ask you to write in with details of your proposal if you want us to comment on a particular building, extension or design.

 

For written advice and meeting requests please send the information (given below) and fee (via a cheque made payable to Maidstone Borough Council) to:

 

Business Support Manager

Development Control

Maidstone House

King Street

Maidstone

ME15 6JQ

 

For written advice you will need to write to us including the following as a minimum:

• Your name and contact details;
• The appropriate advice fee; 
• Description of the proposed development and the uses to which the land and buildings will be put;
• Site address and location plan (scale 1:1250) with the site outlined in red
• Current use and occupancy of the site;
• Photographs (located on a sketch plan) showing the site as existing and indicating buildings, trees, etc.;
• Sketch drawings providing details of the proposal. Floor plans for each floor of the proposed building together with at least sketch elevations that are sufficient to indicate the initial architectural approach and palette of materials. These should show the elevations in relation to any adjacent buildings so as to identify the context of the scheme.

For Pre-Application meetings you will also need to include all of the above but should also provide other details such as an initial design and access statement, and ecological, landscape, contamination, flood and transport assessments depending on the location, nature and complexity of the development.  The more information provided the more accurate the advice that can be given by the Planning Officer.  Please note that no meeting will be booked until the necessary fee and information have been received.

 

What we will do

On receipt of your initial enquiry we shall decide whether it requires pre-application advice and what type of advice is most suitable. If we consider that advice is not appropriate or necessary we shall let you know and return any fees paid.

 

Your enquiry will be allocated an appropriate planner and we will send you their details and, if written advice is to be provided the date you may expect to receive. This will normally be within 15 working days. This written reply setting out our advice will comprise the service for the standard charge. Further enquiries will be charged a further fee.

 

If we do not have sufficient information to answer your enquiry we will write to you by letter or email setting out what further information we need.

 

If the enquiry relates requires a Pre-Application Meeting and you have proivded the fee and necessary information we will assign a Planning Officer to the case and he/she will contact you to book the meeting.  The timing of the meeting will depend on the complexity of the scheme and the amount of work that will be needed prior to the meeting, including the time needed to obtain the initial views of other interested parties or agencies involved in the planning process. Attendance of other officers at the meeting, including specialist advisers, will be decided by the case officer.

 

The meeting will normally be at the Maidstone Borough Council offices but we can also consider site meetings if required.

 

Following the meeting we will write to you confirming the advice given. This will usually be within 15 working days unless the proposal is particularly complex, when an alternative timescale will be agreed.

 

Where you have not provided the full fee or all the information required you will be contacted by a member of the support team and requested to provide the missing fee/information within 30 days or the case will be closed.  

 

Just remember…

Any advice given by council officers following pre-application enquiries does not constitute a formal response or decision of the council in respect of any future planning applications.

 

Any views or opinions expressed are given in good faith, and to the best of ability, based on existing planning policies and standards, without prejudice to the formal consideration of any future planning application. The final decision on any application that you may then make can only be taken after the council has consulted local people, statutory consultees and other interested parties. The final decision on an application will then be made by senior planning officers or by the council’s Planning Committee and will be based on all of the information available at the time.

 

It follows that officers cannot give any guarantees about the final formal decision that will be made on any future planning application. However, any pre-application advice that has been provided will be carefully considered in reaching a decision or recommendation on an application, subject to the proviso that circumstances and information may change, and so alter that position. (The weight given to pre-application advice notes will inevitably decline over time and little or no weight may be given to the council’s pre-application advice for schemes which are submitted more than two years after the advice being issued)

 

Any advice given in relation to planning history of the site, planning constraints or statutory designations does not constitute a formal response under the provisions of the Local Land Charges Act 1975.

 

Please note: Pre-application requests for advice will not be subject to any publicity but we may be obliged to release documents if we receive a Freedom of Information request or Environmental Information Request and our file notes will form part of the public file if an application follows. We cannot therefore guarantee confidentiality. If the information you provide includes commercially sensitive or confidential information this should be clearly stated at the head of the submission. We can then take this into account should an FOI/ EIR request be received.

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