What is a planning condition?

In the UK a planning condition is a constraint placed on the granting of planning permission which allows development to go ahead only if certain conditions are satisfied. Conditions include time limits on development, undertakings regarding environmental and noise issues and limits on the size and external appearance of a new development.

Planning permissions are usually granted subject to a planning condition which requires the development to be commenced within three years. Typically they will also include a number of other conditions, for example undertakings regarding environmental and noise issues; limits on the size and external appearance of a new development; requirements for the scheme to be built in accordance with the approved drawings, trees to be planted as per the landscape scheme and replaced if they die in the first few years, or that the colour and finish of external materials be approved by the Local Planning Authority. Some of these will need to be complied with before any work starts on site; others will take effect once the development is commenced, or later.

Most conditions imposed on a granted planning permission will relate to implementation of works within the actual site of the application (the edges of which must be defined by a red line marked on an accurately scaled map of the site, usually an Ordnance Survey extract, accompanying the application). If there is a need to control aspects of the development which are required to occur outside the defined application site (such as related highway improvements) then the implementation of those aspects can be required by a Grampian condition. This would be worded to the effect that the development being permitted must not be commenced (or must not be occupied, as appropriate), until the required off-site works had been completed.

Planning conditions are imposed to require that something is done or not done by the developer in order to make the development acceptable. Sometimes, planning permission will only be granted subject to the applicant entering into a legal agreement under Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act requiring that certain things be done or money be paid to the LPA e.g. to contribute towards the improvement of local highways, schools, open spaces or other facilities serving the development before the development is completed or occupied. Such contributions can only be required if they are necessary to make the development acceptable, reasonable, and relate directly to the development proposed.

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