01 What you are actually holding: the decision notice and the file behind it
A planning permission arrives as a decision notice: a page or two naming the applicant, describing the development in a single sentence, granting permission, and then listing the conditions. It is the shortest document in the planning pack and the one most likely to be read on its own, which is where bids go wrong. The description of development is a label, not a specification. What was permitted is fixed by the drawings the notice approves, and the notice usually identifies them only by number.
So the first job is to read the notice against its file. That means the approved drawings, the officer's report or delegated report explaining why permission was granted, the section 106 agreement if there is one, and the discharge decisions for the conditions. On a site that has been through several applications you also need to know which permission is the operative one, because a data room will often hold an original consent, a later variation and a set of reserved matters approvals, all describing subtly different schemes.
This guide describes the planning system in England. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own legislation, their own appeal bodies and, in places, their own terminology, so the procedure names and time limits below should not be carried across without checking.
Read the description of development closely against the scheme you intend to build. A permission for a single unit is not a permission for two, a permission that names a use class does not carry a right to a different one, and floorspace figures in the description bind you as firmly as the drawings do.
02 The conditions: the six tests, and the ones that cost money
Conditions are where a planning permission turns into an appraisal line. National policy allows a condition only where it is necessary, relevant to planning, relevant to the development permitted, enforceable, precise and reasonable in all other respects. All six have to be met, and knowing them is useful in both directions: it tells you which conditions are worth challenging and which are simply the price of the consent.
For a bid, sort the conditions into three piles. First, the pre-commencement conditions, which must be discharged before development begins. These are the ones that control the programme, and they are the ones that decide whether an old consent was ever lawfully implemented. On applications made in England since October 2018 a pre-commencement condition cannot normally be imposed by the authority without the applicant's agreement, but agreement can be deemed where a formal notice goes unanswered, and the rule does not bind an Inspector on appeal. So their presence on a recent consent is evidence that the wording was put to the applicant, not proof that it was negotiated.
Second, the conditions that carry cost or delivery obligations: highway works to be completed before occupation, a drainage strategy to be approved and built, a remediation strategy and a verification report, a biodiversity net gain plan, a travel plan with monitoring. Each of these is a piece of work, a fee and a period of authority time, and each has a trigger point that can hold up practical completion or income.
Third, the conditions that constrain the operation once built: hours of use, HGV movement caps, noise limits at the site boundary, restrictions on external storage, occupancy tied to a named use. On a logistics asset these can matter more than the build cost, because they decide which occupiers can take the space and at what rent.
Discharging conditions is its own process, with an application, a fee per request and a determination period, and it is routinely underestimated. A consent carrying thirty conditions is not thirty pieces of paper, it is a work programme with a critical path through it.
03 Is the permission still alive? Time limits and implementation
A full permission in England normally has to be begun within three years of grant, and an outline permission normally requires reserved matters to be applied for within three years and development to begin within two years of the final reserved matters approval. Older notices used different periods, so read the date on the notice rather than assuming.
The important point is what happens at the deadline. A permission that has been lawfully implemented before it expires does not lapse, and can in principle be completed years later. So on a site with a decade-old consent the question is never simply whether the clock has run out; it is whether a material operation was carried out under the permission in time, and whether the permission was capable of being implemented when that happened.
That second half is the trap. If a pre-commencement condition was still outstanding when the trenches were dug, the works may not amount to a lawful implementation, and the consent may have quietly expired while everyone involved believed it was live. It does not follow that every unfulfilled pre-commencement condition has that effect: the courts distinguish conditions that genuinely go to the heart of the permission from those that do not, and which is which is a question of construction on the wording. This is a documentary question, and it is answered by the discharge decisions, not by a seller's assurance. Where the position is genuinely uncertain, a certificate of lawfulness from the authority is the instrument that settles it, and asking the seller to obtain one is a reasonable condition of a bid.
Watch also for what implementation switches on. Commencement is normally the trigger for Community Infrastructure Levy liability where the authority charges it, and CIL follows the land. A part-implemented consent can therefore carry a liability that has already crystallised.
04 Changing a consent you have bought
Almost no buyer builds exactly the scheme they acquire, so the routes for changing one are part of pricing the site.
A non-material amendment under section 96A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 handles small changes to an approved scheme. It is quick and cheap, but the test is strict and what counts as non-material is for the authority to judge, so it is unlikely to carry a meaningful change to floorspace or unit mix.
An application under section 73 varies or removes a condition, and is the usual route for a minor material amendment. Understand what it produces: a section 73 grant is a new permission sitting alongside the original, not an edit to it, with its own conditions, though it cannot buy time: section 73(5) prevents the commencement deadline being extended, so the original time limit still governs. It also cannot be used to change the description of development itself, so on the section 73 route a genuinely different scheme needs a fresh application, with everything that implies for the evidence base and for any section 106. A further statutory route for varying a permission has since been legislated for, so check the current position before treating a fresh application as the only option.
Where an existing section 106 agreement no longer fits the scheme, it can be renegotiated by deed of variation with the authority. Before five years have run from the date the obligation was entered into that is pure negotiation; after five years there is a statutory right to apply under section 106A to modify or discharge it, with an appeal under section 106B if the authority refuses. Assume time for either route, and check whether the obligations are drafted to bind successors before you assume you can inherit them quietly.
05 Prior approval and permitted development
Not everything on a site was built under a planning permission, and on industrial stock that is normal rather than suspicious. The General Permitted Development Order grants planning permission for defined classes of development without an application, and some of those classes require the developer to notify the authority first and obtain prior approval on a limited list of matters, such as transport, contamination, flood risk or noise.
Two distinctions are worth keeping straight. Permitted development is the underlying right; prior approval is a procedural gate attached to some of those rights. And prior approval is not a planning permission with a shorter form: the authority's discretion is confined to the matters the Order specifies, which is why the route is quicker and also why it can be a weaker foundation. The right can also be removed, most commonly by an article 4 direction, and the limits and conditions in each class are detailed and easy to breach by a small margin.
On an industrial acquisition the practical questions are whether the extensions, hard standings and mezzanines on the site actually fall within the class relied on, whether the prior approval evidence exists, and whether the use itself was ever lawfully established. Where a class provides that development may proceed if the authority does not determine within the period, the file may contain a notification and no decision at all. That can be perfectly lawful, but it has to be evidenced rather than assumed, and a certificate of lawfulness is again the clean answer.
06 Refusals and appeals: reading a site whose consent was contested
A refusal in the planning history is a piece of evidence about the site, and often a more candid one than the officer's report on the application that succeeded. Read the reasons for refusal first. A refusal on a policy judgement, such as whether the loss of a designated employment use is acceptable, tells you the site is arguable. A refusal grounded in a physical constraint, an unresolved highway objection, a flood sequential test that was not passed, a contamination point the authority would not accept, tells you what has to be solved before any scheme works.
Appeals go to the Planning Inspectorate and run under one of three procedures: written representations, an informal hearing, or a public inquiry, in ascending order of time and cost. Separately, the type varies: an appeal may be against a refusal, against the conditions attached to an approval, against non-determination within the statutory period, or against enforcement action. If the data room shows an appeal in progress, the planning position is unresolved for as long as it runs, and that period belongs in the programme.
If an appeal has been dismissed, the decision letter is the most useful document in the pack. It is a reasoned judgement on the site by someone with no commercial interest in it, and it sets out precisely which arguments failed. A dismissed appeal also makes the same scheme harder to consent again, because the decision becomes a material consideration. Where an appeal was allowed, read the Inspector's conditions rather than the headline, because appeal consents frequently arrive with obligations the applicant did not want.
One further branch belongs here: enforcement. Unauthorised development can become immune from enforcement action after a period, but the period changed in England in recent years, and breaches that predate the change keep the shorter period that applied then, so treat an assumption of immunity as a legal question rather than a fact. Again, a certificate of lawfulness is the instrument that turns a belief into a position you can underwrite.
07 Red flags to catch before you bid
Some findings should change the number rather than the notes. A decision notice without its approved drawings tells you nothing you can rely on. A consent whose description does not match the marketed scheme, whether on floorspace, unit count or use, is a fresh application waiting to happen. A pre-commencement condition with no discharge decision on a consent the seller describes as implemented is the single most valuable thing to find in a planning pack.
Then look for the obligations. A section 106 whose triggers have not been met, or whose contributions are index-linked from an old date, carries a live and growing cost. An unquantified CIL position on a part-implemented consent is an open number. Occupancy or operating conditions that restrict hours, movements or storage narrow the tenant pool. And an appeal in progress, or a dismissal the pack does not mention, is a planning position that has not settled.
None of these is automatically fatal. The job before a bid is to turn each into a cost, a programme risk or a reason to walk, and to be sure none of them is sitting unread in an appendix.
08 Frequently asked questions
What are the six tests for a planning condition?
National policy says a condition should only be imposed where it is necessary, relevant to planning, relevant to the development permitted, enforceable, precise, and reasonable in all other respects. All six have to be met. The tests matter to a buyer because they are the grounds on which a condition can be challenged: a condition that is imprecise, or that asks for something unrelated to the development consented, is one an application under section 73 or an appeal can realistically attack. A condition that plainly passes all six is a cost to price in rather than an argument to have.
How long does a planning permission last before it lapses?
A full permission in England normally has to be begun within three years of the date it was granted, though the decision notice can set a different period and older consents often did. An outline permission normally requires the reserved matters to be applied for within three years and the development to begin within two years of the last reserved matters approval. Once development has lawfully begun the permission does not expire, so the question on a site with an old consent is not the date on the notice but whether anything was ever built under it.
What counts as implementing a planning permission?
A permission is implemented by carrying out a material operation under it before the time limit runs out, which can be something as modest as digging foundation trenches or laying out an access. The catch is that the operation only counts if the permission was capable of being implemented at the time, which means any condition that genuinely went to the heart of the permission must have been discharged first, and whether a particular pre-commencement condition had that effect is a question of construction rather than a mechanical test. A start made while a pre-commencement condition was outstanding is the most common reason a consent a seller treats as live turns out not to be, so ask for the discharge decisions rather than accepting the claim.
How much does it cost to get planning permission?
The application fee itself is fixed by a published scale and rises with floorspace, and it is rarely the number that matters. The cost that reaches an appraisal is the evidence base the authority expects alongside the application, which on a logistics scheme means transport, flood risk, contamination, ecology, biodiversity net gain and often more, plus the obligations the permission carries: section 106 contributions, highways works and the Community Infrastructure Levy where the authority charges it. When you are pricing a site with a consent already in place, the useful question is not what the consent cost the seller but what is left to pay under it.
What is the difference between prior approval and planning permission?
Planning permission is a decision on the acceptability of the development as a whole. Prior approval applies where the development is already permitted by the General Permitted Development Order, and the authority is only entitled to consider a defined list of matters, such as transport, contamination, flood risk or noise, before the work goes ahead. The practical differences are that the authority's discretion is narrower, the determination period is shorter, and the right can be withdrawn or restricted, for example by an article 4 direction. A prior approval is not a weaker planning permission, it is a separate consent, and it needs reading against the class of the Order it was granted under.
What is the difference between prior approval and permitted development?
Permitted development is the underlying right: the General Permitted Development Order grants planning permission for certain classes of development so no application is needed. Prior approval is a procedural step attached to some of those classes, where you have to notify the authority and obtain its approval on specific matters before proceeding. So all prior approval cases are permitted development, but not all permitted development needs prior approval. On an industrial site the classes worth checking are the ones covering extensions and hard surfaces within an existing industrial curtilage, and the change of use routes into and out of commercial floorspace.
How long does prior approval take?
Shorter than a planning application, and the period is fixed by the class in the Order rather than negotiated. Several classes also provide that if the authority does not notify a decision within the period, the development may proceed, which is why a data room sometimes holds no decision notice at all for work that was lawfully carried out. If that is the position, look for the evidence that the notification was properly made and the period genuinely expired, because a deemed approval that cannot be evidenced is a lawfulness question rather than a consent.
What are the three types of planning appeal?
The phrase usually refers to the three procedures the Planning Inspectorate runs an appeal under: written representations, an informal hearing, and a full public inquiry. Written representations is the quickest and the default for straightforward cases; an inquiry, with advocates and cross-examination, is the slowest and is reserved for the largest or most contested schemes. Separately there are different types of appeal, against a refusal, against the conditions imposed on an approval, against non-determination within the statutory period, and against enforcement action. The procedure tells you how long the site is likely to be in limbo; the type tells you what is actually in dispute.
How long does a planning appeal take?
Long enough to matter to a bid. Written representations is the fastest route and an inquiry the slowest, with the gap between them measured in many months rather than weeks, and the Planning Inspectorate publishes current timescales by procedure. For a buyer the appeal period is dead time on the programme during which the planning position cannot be relied on, so an appeal in progress is usually a reason to price an option rather than a consent.
What are the chances of winning a planning appeal?
Most appeals are dismissed and a substantial minority are allowed, and the rate moves with the procedure and the type of appeal, so take the current published statistics from the Planning Inspectorate rather than a rule of thumb. What matters more for a bid is the reason for refusal. An appeal turning on a policy judgement the Inspector could reasonably go either way on is a genuine risk; an appeal against a refusal grounded in a hard constraint, a highway safety objection or an unresolved flood or contamination point, is one where the underlying problem has to be fixed whatever the Inspector decides.
What happens if a planning appeal is dismissed?
The refusal stands and the decision becomes a material consideration for any similar application on the site, which makes the same scheme harder to consent a second time. There is no further appeal on the planning merits: the only route is a statutory challenge in the High Court on a point of law, which is narrow and time limited. In practice a dismissal means going back with a scheme that answers the Inspector's reasons, and for a bid it should be read as evidence about what the site can carry, not as one lost round.
Turn a planning pack into a position, in hours
Plumb reads the decision notices, conditions, discharge decisions, section 106 agreements and appeal decisions in a deal's data room alongside the title, environmental and technical material, sets out what the consent actually permits, which conditions carry cost or hold up occupation, and where the pack leaves the planning position open. Every point is cited back to the page it came from, so your read is easy to defend in committee.