What are planning conditions?

Conditions can be placed on planning permissions, where they are necessary in order to make the development proposal acceptable.

Government advice in Circular 11/95 sets out 6 tests for conditions. Conditions must be: necessary, relevant to planning, relevant to the development to be permitted, enforceable, precise and reasonable in all other respects. Conditions may not require the payment of money or the transfer of land ownership.

Conditions may be placed on planning applications and other types of applications under the Planning Acts, such as listed building consent and advertisement consent.

Applicants can appeal against conditions which they consider are not justified.

There may be times when the Council wants to control the impact of the development, but the desired restrictions go beyond the scope of planning conditions. In such cases it may be possible to enter into a legal agreement with the applicant and anyone else who has a legal interest in the land, under Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

Useful forms and links can be found on the right hand side of this page.