The paperwork that stops a job starting

Permission granted is not work beginning

Almost every permission arrives with conditions attached, and some of them are worded "no development shall take place until...". Those are pre-commencement conditions, and until the council formally discharges them the owner cannot lawfully start. Drainage details, materials, a construction management plan, an archaeological watching brief — none of them stop the scheme, all of them stop the digger.

This is the gap that catches builders out. A homeowner rings in March saying they have permission and want to start next week, and the permission does say granted. What it does not say, unless you read the conditions, is that three of them have to be cleared first and the council has eight weeks to answer.

What a council may and may not impose

A condition has to pass six tests: necessary, relevant to planning, relevant to the development, enforceable, precise, and reasonable in all other respects. That is national policy, not local preference, and a condition failing them can be challenged.

Since 2018 a council may not grant permission subject to a pre-commencement condition without the applicant’s written agreement to its terms, under section 100ZA(5) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. There are exceptions for outline permissions. In practice this means a pre-commencement condition on a householder job was agreed by the owner or their agent — so somebody on the other side already knows it is there.

How long discharging takes

The council has eight weeks from the day after it receives the application, and sixteen where environmental impact assessment applies. If it has not decided within twelve weeks the fee has to be returned.

There is also a deemed discharge route for conditions imposed after 15 April 2015: the applicant serves notice giving at least six weeks, and if the council still has not determined it, approval is deemed to have been given. It is used rarely, but it exists, and it is worth knowing that a stalled discharge is not necessarily a stalled job.

Why this is the signal worth watching

Nobody pays to discharge conditions unless they intend to build. Everything else in a planning register is a statement of intent that may never happen; a discharge application is money spent on the last piece of paperwork before work. It is the closest the public record comes to a start date.

Tradecue flags these as "Starting soon", and you can filter the feed to them alone or set an alert for the areas you cover. What we cannot tell you is whether a builder is already appointed — the register does not say, and anyone claiming otherwise is guessing.

Sources

• Planning practice guidance: use of planning conditions (GOV.UK)
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, section 100ZA

General explanation, not legal or planning advice. Anything that turns on the detail of a particular site is worth a free phone call to the council’s planning department. Something here wrong or out of date? Tell us.