Why knowing the planning system is vital

The planning system can be convoluted and what you think you understand, might not be what it seems. Planning consultant Simon Rix shares one anecdote relating to retrospective planning that highlights why it pays to get advice early on

- SIMON RIX

Imagine sitting in the shiny new kitchen of your recently built or refurbished home, eating your favourite breakfast, let’s say scrambled eggs on toast, done to perfection. You are feeling pretty good, partly because you are in a home made the way you want it, and perhaps to a large extent made by you. But then comes the thud of envelopes hitting your new door mat. There are a smattering of house warming cards, perhaps a bank statement for that account you forgot to go paperless for, but also sitting there is an envelope with your local council’s logo on it. Not something you were expecting, so you open that one first. And when you do, it’s terrifying news. You have been served an Enforcement Notice, giving you eight months to stop using your house as a home — basically an eviction order of sorts.

If this sounds far-fetched, it actually happened to Paul (not his real name) a couple of years ago. Paul’s main problem was he didn’t understand the planning system, or more specifically he didn’t understand what it required him to do or what various planning terms meant. He thought he did, but he didn’t. Ultimately this is what caused him to be issued with an Enforcement Notice. For context, Paul turned a barn into a dwelling (incorrectly) thinking he had the right to, and he also extended it under PD rights.

Paul later became one of my clients, but had he found me just six months earlier, I could have saved him from this nightmare scenario entirely. So what happened?

FIRST, LET’S DEFINE A KEY PLANNING TERM: DEVELOPMENT