What happens after my planning drawings are finished in London?

The case officer's assessment and the site visit

While consultation runs, the application is passed to a case officer. The officer reads the drawings against the council's local plan and design guidance, reads any comments that come in, and may visit the site or look at it from the street and neighbouring gardens. You do not need to be home for that unless the officer asks to come inside or into the garden.

This is the stage where drawings earn their fee a second time. If the officer has a concern that can be fixed, such as a parapet that is too high on the boundary or a dormer that needs setting back from the eaves, councils sometimes ask for amended drawings rather than refuse. We redraw for that request as part of the fixed fee and send the amended set back to the officer, with your agreement on the change first.

Sometimes the officer asks for more time to look at amendments. A decision period longer than 8 weeks has to be agreed in writing with the applicant, with the new timescale set out. Whether to agree is your choice; we will tell you what we think the request means for your scheme.

The decision: officer or committee, grant or refusal

Who decides depends on the council. Each authority sets its own scheme of delegation, which says which applications its officers decide and which go to a planning committee. Schemes with many objections, or ones a ward councillor asks to see, are the ones more likely to reach committee.

Government guidance sets the time limit for a decision at 8 weeks for most applications once the application is valid. The decision notice is sent to the applicant, or to us as your agent, and published on the council website. If permission is refused, the notice must state clearly and precisely the full reasons for the refusal and name the local plan policies it relies on. Those reasons are what any redesign or appeal has to answer.

Conditions on a grant: read them before you book a builder

Almost every permission comes with conditions. Government guidance says each one must pass six tests: necessary, relevant to planning, relevant to the development, enforceable, precise and reasonable. Conditions often seen on London extensions include matching bricks, obscure glazing to a side window, or no use of a flat roof as a terrace.

Some conditions must be dealt with before any work starts, with wording such as no development shall take place until something has been approved. Sending the council the details to discharge a condition is a separate application, and the council must give its decision on it within 8 weeks unless a longer period is agreed in writing. Our guide to discharging planning conditions explains that process step by step.

The permission itself must be begun within three years of the date it is granted. For what comes after the letter on the building side, from Building Regulations drawings to structural calculations and party wall notices, read what drawings you need once you have planning permission.

If the answer is no: amend, resubmit or appeal

A refusal is not the end of the scheme. You have three routes. You can change the design to answer the reasons given and submit a fresh application; for many householder refusals the fix is a smaller depth, a lower eaves line or a different roof form. You can talk to the council first about what it would accept. Or you can appeal to the Planning Inspectorate if you think the council got it wrong.

For a householder application, you can appeal for up to 12 weeks from the date on the decision letter. That window is short and does not pause while you think about redesigning, so decide early which route to take. We prepare householder appeals for a fixed £449; see our householder planning appeal service and our post on who can redraw plans after a refusal.

What you do while the council decides

Very little is asked of you once the application is valid, but a few things help. Keep an eye on your email for messages from us or the council, and answer any question about the ownership certificate or access quickly. Look at the comments on the council website as they come in, and tell us if a neighbour raises something you can easily resolve. Do not start any work the permission would cover: building before a decision risks enforcement action and makes any later application harder.

You can use the waiting time well. Ask two or three builders for rough prices on the planning drawings, start thinking about a Building Regulations route, and, if the extension is on or near a shared wall, read up on party wall notices so they can go out soon after the decision.

To get a fixed fee for drawings that are prepared and submitted for you, use the form on our planning drawings page. Every fee we charge, including appeals, is on our pricing page.