section: Local Planning System

Planning Permission

Producing a local neighbourhood plan is not the only way of influencing the local planning system. Many community groups and citizens take part in consultations on planning permission…

Producing a local neighbourhood plan is not the only way of influencing the local planning system. Many community groups and citizens take part in consultations on planning permission...

In more detail

Developing land and buildings changes both the way the owner can use the property and the use other people can make use of the property they have an interest in around it.  ‘Around it’ could mean: next door (in the case of things like blocking out light  and views); in the same street (in the case of things like parking; the same neighbourhood (for things like access to public services like schools and health services); across a town or city, or even a whole region or the country, in the case – for example – of major projects like High Speed Railway lines or  nuclear power stations.  We have a planning system because developing property affects the owners of other property around it.  To develop land and buildings, you need both the ownership (or the permission of the owner) and the permission of the community  to develop land or buildings.  ‘Planning permission’ is the name given to this community permission.

Planning Proposal

The planning permission process starts when property owners submit a planning proposal to the council describing how they would like to develop their property.  (Some limited forms of development do not need planning permission).  The council (actually a committee of the council called the Planning Committee) must decide whether what the owner wants to do counts as permitted development.  Permitted development is development which is within the bounds of what the community has agreed – through the local planning framework – is OK.  In practice, the planning committee of the local council is assisted by a team of specialist officers – professional planners.   On behalf of the committee, they publish a list of the proposals received by the council so that people who may be affected by whatever is being proposed can comment.

Consultation

Consultation on planning permissions is an important way in which amenity groups, neighbourhood forums, residents groups, others and individual residents can have a say in the local planning system.  The formal consultation period normally lasts for 21 days and involves:

  • Public consultation – including consultation with neighbouring residents and community groups. Councils publish lists of planning proposals and make this available on line and at council offices.  They will also directly contact groups they know are active and interested in given neighbourhoods.
  • Statutory consultees – the law says certain people must be consulted about certain developments – they include people who own land adjoining the site; a number of government departments and public bodies (depending on the proposal) including conservation and heritage bodies ; other local authorities (in places where there different layers of local government covering the same area) including parish councils; highways authorities and companies providing water supplies and sewerage.

Planning Committee

You can ask the planning committee to turn down planning permission or to ask for changes in the proposal, but if you want the committee to listen to you, you will need to provide good reasons why they should do what you say.  Bear in mind that the committee has to look at the planning case for and against a proposal, so you need to argue in terms of relevant plans and planning policies.  Further consultation on changes submitted by an applicant can occur before the committee take a final decision

After consultation is complete, the committee makes a decision, advised by the planners.  The planners advise the committee on what existing plans say and on the relevant  council, government and EU policies that might affect the proposal as well as on the results of the consultation.

If a proposed development is in line with plans, then the committee agrees to grant either full or outline permission to it and the officers issue the necessary planning permission.  If the planning committee thinks that a proposal does not fit in with what the relevant plans and policies say, then they can refuse permission.  The decision rests with the planning committee – they can ignore what consultees and their own officers say.  If they do, however, they may create the basis for an appeal against their decision.

Key Facts:

Development proposals that require planning permission are published by the council for public consultation for a period of 21 days before a decision is made on them.  If you respresent a residents' group, then talk to the planners who cover your area to make sure you get details or know where to look for published proposals.  Decisions on planning permission are made by the Planning Committee of the council advised by local planners who work for the council.  The Planning Committee considers relevant evidence for and against granting permission - it cannot turn down planning permission just because you say you think it should. 
 

Page Links from here

The Planning Portal guide to whether you need Planning Permission

In the toolkit:

Planning Authorities

Planning Profession

Planning Obligations


OR you can use the navigation menu above right to look at other parts of the toolkit.

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Planning Law

Planning Law is based on the idea that owning land does not give you complete rights to decide what to do with it because the community (through the local council) has rights too…

Planning Law is based on the idea that owning land does not give you complete rights to decide what to do with it because the community (through the local council) has rights too...

In more detail

Town planning law in England dates back to the 1909 Housing and Town Planning Act - though 19th century Housing Acts and bye-laws introduced building standards in Victorian England.  Later in the 20th century, rebuilding cities which had suffered extensive bombing during the Second World War gave rise to the Town and Country Planning Act 1947.  This law brought in the idea of planning permission (owning land no longer meant you alone could choose how to develop it); compulsory purchase orders; and the basis for the listing of buildings of special architectural or historic interest.

Most of the relevant planning law today is contained in:

  • the Town and Country Planning Act 1990
  • the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004
  • the Localism Act 2011
  • and the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) introduced in 2012.

Town and Country Planning Act 1990

This law defines which local authorities act as local planning authorities; sets out the basis for development control and planning agreements (sometimes called section 106 agreements related to the idea of ‘planning gain’ which is when developers entered into planning obligations to provide money to offset the external costs of development); defines enforcement actions; and contains clauses dealing with tree protection, advertising, highways planning and other aspects of planning.

Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004

This law sets out the Local Development Framework maintained by each planning authority (replacing the system of structure plans and local plans established by the 1990 Act); makes it easier for local authorities to compulsorily purchase land; abolishes Crown immunity (making government departments and other public bodies subject to planning law); and replaces 'planning obligations' with 'planning contributions'.

Localism Act 2011

The Localism Act 2011: introduced neighbourhood planning, the community right to build, the community right to bid (on assets of registered social value); and reformed the Community Infrastructure Levy with the intention of ensuring more of the money goes to neighbourhoods directly affected by developments.

The Localism Act gave local authorities a power of general competence (to do anything which it would be legal for any person to do) and made changes to the way business rates work designed to encourage local authorities to be more enterprising.

The Act clarified the law on ‘predetermination’ with the effect that local councillors may speak out and campaign on local development proposals, for example, even if they are members of a committee that will decide on those proposals.

The Act abolished regional strategies but provided planning authorities with a duty to cooperate with each other; and changed the way nationally significant infrastructure projects are dealt with.

Key Facts:

There are three main bits of legislation that set out the statutory framework for the planning system in England:

  • the Town and Country Planning Act 1990
  • the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004
  • the Localism Act 2011.

The government - accountable to Parliament - sets a National Planning Policy Framework to explain how these laws will be applied in practice. Local councils devise their own local planning framework to explain how the NPPF will be applied locally.  Parish councils and neighbourhood forums, as well as local councils, can make local plans which, once adopted, form part of the local planning framework.

Page Links from here

Planning legislation on the Planning Portal

and in this toolkit:

Planning Authorities

National Planning Policy Framework

Spatial Planning

Local Planning System

Local Development Framework


OR you can use the navigation menu above right to look at other parts of the toolkit.

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Planning Committee

Local plans make a framework for deciding what development should go ahead and what shouldn’t. Your local council planning committee, however, makes the actual decisions (including on adopting new neighbourhood plans)…

Local plans make a framework for deciding what development should go ahead and what shouldn't. Your local council planning committee, however, makes the actual decisions (including on adopting new neighbourhood plans)...

In more detail

Local government in England used to be run by committees.  In most authorities now, however, executive decisions are made by councillors chosen by the council Leader who make up the council Cabinet.  Cabinet members have a portfolio for which they are responsible (housing, social services, public health etc).  They make executive decisions relating to their areas of responsibility. Other councillors scrutinise those decisions through the work of overview and scrutiny committees.

Non-executive council decision-making

Parliament has given local councils certain sets of non-executive decisions to make.  These include decisions about local planning which Parliament has delegated to the ‘local planning authority’.  The local planning authority is the unitary local authority or the district or borough council in places where there are two levels of local government.  These councils delegate their responsibilities as the local planning authority to a committee of councillors chosen by the full council.  This Planning Committee (it might be called the Planning and Highways Committee or the Planning and Licensing Committee or some other variant depending on where you live) is, in effect, the local planning authority.

It used to be said that planning committees were ‘quasi-judicial bodies’.  That is, that they had powers and approaches to decision similar to those taken by a court of law.  The High Court has ruled this is not the case: councillors are still councillors (democratically accountable to the people that elected them) when they sit on a Planning Committee.  Unlike  judges, committee  members  are  not required  to be  independent  or  impartial: they may clearly be predisposed to agree with one side or another in the debate about planning permission for a contentious development, for example.  They must, however, consider fairly the issues before them and make decisions on the merits of the arguments presented to them.

Who is on the Planning Commitee?

The Planning Committee is made of by a balance of councillors from the political parties represented on the full Council.  The different parts of the area covered by the committee will also be balance in terms of representation; so that the committee is not dominated by councillors from only one part.  Most planning decisions are delegated by the committee to be made by officers.   The chief planning officer – who may be called a Director of Planning etc - reports these decisions to the committee.    The committee looks in detail at the larger, most contentious or complex proposals.

Meetings of the local Planning Committee should be advertised and conducted in public.  Meetings may even be streamed online.  The public can be excluded from meetings if confidential matters come under discussion.

Key Facts:

The Planning Committee is the group of councillors in each city, borough or district that exercises the powers and duties of the council acting as the local planning authority.   The committee delegates most planning decisions to officers accountable to it.  Important decisions – including the adoption of a neighbourhood plan, for example – will be made by your local council planning committee.

Page Links from here

Planning Authorities

Councillors

Planning Profession

Planning Permission 


OR you can use the navigation menu above right to look at other parts of the toolkit.

BIRMINGHAM COMMUNITY PLANNING TOOLKIT DEFINITION SHEET This sheet may be reproduced in paper or electromic or any other form but please mention it was made by Chamberlain Forum Limited for Birmingham City Council supported by Department for Communities and Local Government.

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Local Plans

Not all local plans are Neighbourhood Plans, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t produced with a great deal of community input and involvement…

Not all local plans are Neighbourhood Plans, but that doesn't mean they weren't produced with a great deal of community input and involvement...

In more detail

Local plans are spatial plans that add a more local policy layer to the overall guidance contained in a council's Local Development Plan.  Before they are adopted by the council, they are consulted on. When they are adopted by the council, they become 'supplementary planning documents' (SPDs): part of the Local Development Framework.

Most local plans are prepared by the council.  Neighbourhood plans do the same job as council-produced local plans (they add a local policy layer to the development framework), but they carry more policy weight because they have been produced through a community-led Neighbourhood Planning process set out in the Localism Act 2011.  There are also local plans which have been made through community-led processes which are not those set out in the Localism Act.  And there are rather more local plans which have been planner-led but which have involved the community significantly.  Once adopted by the local council, all of these plans - regardless of how they were made - have policy status within the local planning framework.

Four Ways of Making a Local Plan

You can differentiate four approaches to making a local plan:

  • Neighbourhood Planning as described in the Localism Act
  • community-led planning not according to the process in the Act
  • planner-led planning with significant community involvement
  • planner-led planning with less community involvement.

Of the three processes highlighted in this toolkit in Birmingham, the plan in Balsall Heath and the one being made in the Jewellery Quarter are both Neighbourhood Plans.  The process in Moseley, was a community-led plan which just pre-dated the Localism Act.  Moseley's Plan was written by local people and led by Moseley Community Development Trust - which is a community body which more or less fits the description of a neighbourhood forum under the Localism Act.  The plan was the city's first community-led SPD and was adopted by the council in 2014.

SPDs which are made by the council do not require a ballot- they are adopted by the council after a period of public consultation.  If your local community can work with the council planners and elected councillors, you can produce a local SPD (which can be community-led or significantly community-influenced), quicker than you would normally be able to produce a Neighbourhood Plan.

 

Key Facts:

Supplementary Planning Documents make up part of the local development framework, regardless of whether they have been made by the community or by the local council.  If you are able to work with your local council, you may be able to make a local plan which is led by the community or is significantly community-influenced in less time than it would take you to make a Neighbourhood Plan using the process set out in the Localism Act.

Page Links from here

Local Planning System

Neighbourhood Planning

Local Development Framework


OR you can use the navigation menu above right to look at other parts of the toolkit.

BIRMINGHAM COMMUNITY PLANNING TOOLKIT DEFINITION SHEET This sheet may be reproduced in paper or electromic or any other form but please mention it was made by Chamberlain Forum Limited for Birmingham City Council supported by Department for Communities and Local Government.

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Local Development Orders

Local Development Orders enable councils to make it simpler for certain types of development in an area to get planning permission. If you want development fast-tracked in your neighbourhood, working with the council may be a better bet than going for a community-led Neighbourhood Development Order.

Local Development Orders enable councils to make it simpler for certain types of development in an area to get planning permission. If you want development fast-tracked in your neighbourhood, working with the council may be a better bet than going for a community-led Neighbourhood Development Order.

In more detail

Local councils can give planning permission to certain kinds of development within defined areas to simplify planning for developers and enable faster development.   Local Development Orders can be used flexibly as part of different strategies and could be used as an alternative to community-led Neighbourhood Plans and Neighbourhood Development Orders.

Key Points

Local Development Orders can cover any area within that covered by a local planning authority.  They cannot cross local council boundaries, but neighbouring councils could declare identical LDOs applying to adjacent areas.  Key points about LDOs are:

  • they can be permanent (lasting until they are superseded by future policies) or they can be time-limited. Time-limited orders could be used to create a window of opportunity fro developers wishing to benefit from speedier planning.
  • they do not remove or supersede any existing planning permission or permitted development rights in the area they cover. They do not prevent a planning application being submitted to a local planning authority for development which is not specified in the Order.
  • they only grant planning permission – LDOs do not remove the need to comply with other relevant regulations. Councils can, however, use an LDO alongside other measures designed to reduce regulation in order to establish an Enterprise Zone or something similar aimed at attracting business and development in an area.

Uses

There are restrictions on the kind of development that can be enabled using an LDO, but an LDO can enable a wider range of development than a community-led Neighbourhood Development Order.  LDOs could be used, for example in:

  • Housing Development - an LDO can enable and focus housing development in a particular part of the area covered by an authority: a brownfield area, for example, which might otherwise be more difficult to develop and discourage potential developers.
  • Town Centres – an LDO could be used to revitalise a town centre which needs to find new uses (bearing in mind that an LDO can enable the change of use of buildings as well as planning permission).
  • Residential investment – an LDO could be used to enable and encourage small scale improvements to residential properties within a given neighbourhood and make it easier for landlords in a neighbourhood to coordinate their re-investment strategies so as to provide a collective boost to the area and, for example, enable the creation of local employment and training opportunities.
  • Innovation – enabling the development of new kinds of business or renewable power etc

And as alternative to a community-led Neighbourhood Development Order in enabling the kind of development favoured by communities in a particular neighbourhood.   The advantage of an LDO in this application would be that it can be done more quickly and without a referendum.  LDOs require public consultation, but the process of making such an order should be a matter of months.

Article 4 Directions

An Article 4 Direction is a different kind of local development order made by a planning authority under the 1995 Town and Country Planning Order. It removes normal permitted development rights (ie tightens development control) from a given class of property.

The video above is Ron Tate of the Royal Town Planning Institute explaining Article 4 Directions.

Key Facts:

Local Development Orders are issued by the council to simplify the process for getting planning permission for certain sorts of development in specified areas.  They can be used alongside other measures to create Enterprise Zones for particular kinds of development including those generating local employment.  If you want to encourage development in your neighbourhood, then working with the council, if you can, should be quicker and easier than setting up a community-led Neighbourhood Development Order process.

Page Links from here

In this toolkit:

Neighbbourhood Development Orders

Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs)

Conservation Areas

Neighbourhood Design Statements

Tree Preservation Orders


OR you can use the navigation menu above right to look at other parts of the toolkit.

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Life Cycle of a Plan

We mainly think of plans as documents that sit on a bookshelf or a computer server drive. But plans – like butterflies – have a life cycle during which they change shape. The life cycle of a plan is made up of three main stages.

We mainly think of plans as documents that sit on a bookshelf or a computer server drive. But plans - like butterflies - have a life cycle during which they change shape. The life cycle of a plan is made up of three main stages.

In more detail

Plans exist:

As drafts – dealing with possibilities and alternatives. Draft plans are used to engage other people with a stake in the place or project being planned.  They enable the people making the plan to keep track of ideas and other factors affecting the place or the project.  Draft plans facilitate conversation (which is open-ended and aimed at getting ideas and factors identified) and consultation (which is a more formal dialogue aiming to test commitment to particular proposals), a draft plan reaches completion and agreement

As complete and agreed plans – dealing with complete views of future development  and what to do about contingencies (which are things which might happen, but may not).  Agreed plans act as records.  They let everyone with an interest share the same view of what has been agreed in terms of priorities.  And everyone can see the evidence that they have been made on.  Agreed plans provide means of: communication (a plan gives a clear and comprehensible picture of what has been agreed); and coherence (an agreed plan makes clear why it has been agreed and therefore how the plan holds together and makes sense in itself and in relation to any other relevant plans).

As working documents in use– plans are tools.  They define limits and tolerances (which is the leeway around a limit that is acceptable).  Plans describe the way people will behave in terms of a place or a project.  They say what we think we will do in response to contingencies  and unknowns.  At this stage, plans enable : comparison (we can compare what the plan says should or might take place and what actually happens); and control (we can take action in response to contingencies).

Looking after a Plan

The form the plan takes and the skills and relationships needed to use and develop it successfully can vary during its life cycle, for example:

  • During the drafting stage, a neighbourhood plan needs to be open and fluid, growing more formal as it develops so that there is solid evidence to explain why it should be agreed.
  • Before agreeing a neighbourhood plan there needs to be some technical skill and knowledge involved in working out how it fits together and checking it neither contradicts itself or other plans of which it forms part.
  • Agreeing a neighbourhood plan involves a formal process – there needs to be a chance for everyone with a legitimate interest to formally say whether, or not, they agree it.

Using a neighbourhood plan as part of the local planning framework requires professionals with technical skills to make judgements, but it also needs the engagement of the people and organisations that are working within it and decisions on the part of their elected representatives, local councillors.

Key Facts:

Plans are like butterflies - they go through several stages in their life cycle.  The 'six Cs' they need from birth to maturity are:

Conversation and consultation are the key-words when drafting a plan. 

Communication and coherence are the key things when agreeing a plan. 

Comparison and control are important ideas when using a plan in practice.

Page Links from here

In this toolkit:

What is a Plan?

Planning

Community Planning

Spatial Planning


OR you can use the navigation menu above right to look at other parts of the toolkit.

BIRMINGHAM COMMUNITY PLANNING TOOLKIT DEFINITION SHEET This sheet may be reproduced in paper or electromic or any other form but please mention it was made by Chamberlain Forum Limited for Birmingham City Council supported by Department for Communities and Local Government.

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Planning Profession

Who are the officers who make the local planning system work – and how did their profession come about…

Who are the officers who make the local planning system work - and how did their profession come about...

In more detail

Planning professionals concerned with planning places are commonly called ‘town planners’ or ‘urban planners' or just 'planners'.  Most work for local councils.  Their professional body in the UK is the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI).

The need for planning the use of land (and a profession of people to do it) came up first in towns and cities because:

  • there were generally many more competing ways of using land in urban places than in the countryside
  • there is, in particular, the need to ensure there is land set aside for socially desirable uses which might not be privately profitable – roads, parks, government and public buildings etc
  • the social effects of the way private land is used are concentrated in cities so that how land is used in one location can affect the potential for how it can be used in neighbouring properties.

History

The origin of urban planning is said to date back to Hippodamus who, in the 5th century BC, designed the orthogonal ‘grid’ pattern for urban streets (round about the same time as the catapult was invented and before the invention of gears).

After the Great Fire of London in 1666, King Charles appointed surveyors Wencelaus Hollar and Francis Sandford to produce a plan of the city as it stood.  After which, controls on future development were announced:

  • minimum widths for thoroughfares and distances between the overhanging rooves of the buildings that lined them;
  • materials for new buildings restricted to brick and stone;
  • the construction of a new quay at Blackfriars.

Various masterplans for the reconstruction of those parts of the city destroyed by the fire – including one from Sir Christopher Wren influenced by the boulevards of Paris - were considered, and rejected.  So, the City of London was rebuilt along the lines of the rather haphazard street pattern which continues to define it 350 years later, but with the stone buildings which likewise have come to characterise it. The new Blackfriars quay was never built.  Which, perhaps, illustrates an enduring fact: you can use planning to impose constraints on what people build (like those on building materials and road widths); but you can’t use planning to force people to build things.

Modern Town Planning

In industrial Britain, planning – alongside public health - became an essential part of enabling cities to grow.  By the beginning of the 20th century, however, the conditions in industrial cities led to calls for greater regulation of space in them, so:

  • the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) was formed by Ebenezer Howard in 1899 and the first conference of the garden cities movement took place in Bournville, Birmingham in 1901
  • the Housing and Town Planning Act of 1909 (influenced by the garden cities movement) allowed local authorities (under the guidance of the Local Government Board) to prepare schemes for land in course of development, or likely to be developed; and the first academic course on urban planning was developed - at Liverpool University - in the same year
  • in 1910, Thomas Adams was appointed the first Town Planning Inspector at the Local Government Board; and in 1914 Adams and others set up the Town Planning Institute which become the professional body for planners.

Further laws extending and defining the responsibilities of local authorities for town planning were passed in 1947 and 1990.  By 2014, the RTPI had 22,000 members in the UK who were employed by local authorities and by government and other public bodies, businesses, charities and voluntary organisations and as independent consultants.

The video above was published by Spelthorne Borough Council in Surrey to explain what a planning officer does.

Key Facts:

Urban planning dates back two and half thousand years.  The modern town planning profession is just over 100 years old and was developed in England as the need for cross-diciplinary professionals to oversee development grew.  Nowadays, professional planners work for local councils and for developers and consultancies.

Page Links from here

Planning Authority

Local Planning System


OR you can use the navigation menu above right to look at other parts of the toolkit.

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Spatial Planning

We decide how the places we live development by agreeing (through the council) spatial plans. Spatial plans are important, but they aren’t the only sort of plans or policies that can play a part in making better places to live and work.

We decide how the places we live development by agreeing (through the council) spatial plans. Spatial plans are important, but they aren't the only sort of plans or policies that can play a part in making better places to live and work.

In more detail

Land use planning is the rational allocation of a limited natural resource - land - between competing potential uses.

Spatial planning includes land use planning, but takes into account all the policies and activities which affect a place (including ones which aren't so obviously to do with land use) and all the effects of decisions about land use on a place (including those which are social and more subtle than relatively straightforward economic and environmental effects).  You might see spatial planning called things like 'placeshaping'.

Spatial plans (and before them land-use plans) are the basis of the local planning framework.  Which is the set of policies which help the council to decide what development should be allowed, or not, in your neighbourhood.  A neighbourhood plan is a spatial plan.  Local plans produced by your council are also spatial plans.

There are many other sorts of plans and ways of enforcing plans and policies which also help to shape neighbourhoods.  This toolkit aims to explain neighbourhood planning and put it in the context of other forms or spatial planning and other forms of community planning that can make your neighbourhood a better place to live and work.

 

 

Key Facts:

Spatial plans are land-use plans which also take into account how a wide range of other policies affect places and how land use affects wider social well-being.  Neighbourhood plans are an example of spatial plans, but they aren't the only approach to spatial planning and spatial plans are not the only sort of plan whcih affects the wllbeing of your neighbourhodo and the communities which share it.

Page Links from here

Local Planning System


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BIRMINGHAM COMMUNITY PLANNING TOOLKIT DEFINITION SHEET This sheet may be reproduced in paper or electromic or any other form but please mention it was made by Chamberlain Forum Limited for Birmingham City Council supported by Department for Communities and Local Government.

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Planning Authorities

National planning policy in England is made by the government, accountable to Parliament. Local planning authorities are responsible for decisions on planning permsission and may form local planning policy to help make those decisions in an accounatble and fair way…

National planning policy in England is made by the government, accountable to Parliament. Local planning authorities are responsible for decisions on planning permsission and may form local planning policy to help make those decisions in an accounatble and fair way...

In more detail

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) sets out national planning policy in the National Planning Policy Framework.  Local planning authorities, however, are responsible for making local plans and decisions on planning permission - what development to allow and on what condition.  Local authorities cannot make decisions which contradict national planning policy.  Within national policy, however, there is still significant leeway for interpretation and for local priorities to be reflected.  So local authorities produce their own local planning policies, including local area plans, which make up the local planning framework and which explain how they will use their powers of decision making to steer local development so as to bring about greater economic, social and economic wellbeing for the people and place they serve.

Principal Local Planning Authorities

The principal local authority with responsibility for local planning is:

  • the city or metropolitan borough council, if you live in the areas of the old metrpolitan councils (West Midlands, Merseyside, Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire or Tyne & Wear)
  • the borough council, if you live in London
  • the unitary council, if you live in an area outside London or the metropolitan areas which is covered by one
  • the district council, if you live in an area outside London or the metropolitan areas which does not have a unitary council.

Key Facts:

Local planning authorities produce a local planning policy framework within the terms of the national planning policy framework set by DCLG.  The local planning policy framework is made up of policies, including local area plans, which form a coherent whole.  So, new local plans cannot contradict national policy or existing local policy.  Planning authorities consider the national and local policy frameowrks when they make decisions on planning permission.

Page Links from here

Your Local Council

Local Development Framework

Planning Permission

Local Plans


OR you can use the navigation menu above right to look at other parts of the toolkit.

BIRMINGHAM COMMUNITY PLANNING TOOLKIT DEFINITION SHEET This sheet may be reproduced in paper or electromic or any other form but please mention it was made by Chamberlain Forum Limited for Birmingham City Council supported by Department for Communities and Local Government.

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