When does building commence

[Wizard]

I have a rental property where we secured consent to build an additional house. As we had tenants in the house who wanted to stay I have not rushed to start building the new house, but it is now approaching three years since we got consent and a condition was that building must commence within 3 years.

I submitted my application to have all the pre-commencement conditions recognised as satisfied today and while at the council's officers asked the duty officer about what constituted commencement. This is important as once building has commenced the permission is secured and any time limit imposed in the granting of approval falls away. I had heard varying 'rules of thumb', anything from once you dig out the first spadeful of the foundations through to the concrete in the foundations must be in, so I wanted to be certain how far we needed to get before the critical date.

The officer kindly printed off the relevant section of the Town and Country Planning Act. As part of the development of the additional house we need to demolish the garage and the corner of the kitchen of the existing house (before rebuilding). One of the definitions in the act (56 (4) (aa)) says that "material operations" means amongst other things "any work of demolition of a building". So the officer told me that as soon as I have taken down the garage the council will consider the development started.

I had never heard this point about demolition before and thought it worth putting up on the board in case it is helpful to anyone else in the future.

Terry.

[Lootman]

"Material operations" is the phrase I was quoted as well. I asked what that means and the LA building chap told me that putting in one foundation for one new wall would suffice. Once the excavation was done and the concrete poured, but before the trench was filled in again, I had the LA building chap do an inspection, the result of which was that he signed a document indicating that "material" construction had been done, which stops the clock on the 3-year limit.

The 3 years elapsed and, a few years later, I sold the property without ever doing any more work. The document sufficed to satisfy the due diligence of the buyer who, to this day, has also not done any further work.

It was consent to convert a barn into a separate dwelling. The consent probably added 100K to the property value. Actually building it would probably add no value unless you're a builder yourself.

[Wizard]

Yes, getting something in writing is very much part of my list. Whilst we will be building the additional house we had very strong objection from a neighbour who at the time seemed very well informed about planning rules. I would not put it past them to try and get the council to rule that the consent has fallen away the day after building is required to have started.

Terry.

[Dorn1]

If you had planning permission, then getting it re-validated should not be a problem. The "principle of development" has been established and unless there's a major change in your local planning situation (eg. new Conservation Area) then there is little to prevent re-validation. The modern way is all about making it possible rather than blocking permissions and the Local Authority would have to show that the proposed development would cause "demonstrable harm".
If you've done some real work that is clearly associated with the development and had that formally documented (the Building Inspector example given is ideal) then there's no debate. With less definite work the scope for debate is widened to the point that on balance someone could conclude that its not started. But there are several shades of grey within that. Generally Local Authority's will bark, but not bite if there's a modicum of evidence to support starting.
HTH

C

[Wizard]

I thought the Govt. removed the ability to extend a consent, so now it would require a full new application. As mentioned at least one neighbour was very opposed to our development and I would prefer not to open up the opportunity to them to start objecting again.

Terry.