An outline planning application asks the authority to settle the principle of a development before the detail is designed: that the site may be developed for housing, at roughly this scale, with the layout, the scale, the appearance, the access and the landscaping either fixed now or reserved for later. What is an outline planning application to an applicant is a way of testing the principle at a fraction of a full application's cost before the drawings, the surveys and the consultants are commissioned in full; what is outline planning permission is a consent that cannot be built from until the reserved matters are approved. This page sets out what outline planning settles and reserves, what outline planning permission cost turns on, and how a reserved matters application follows.
The principle now, the matters reserved for later
An outline application can reserve any of the five matters, layout, scale, appearance, access and landscaping, and must fix at least the site and the description of what is proposed; where access is reserved the authority will still want the means of access shown. The permission that results settles the principle and sets the time within which the reserved matters must be applied for. An applicant who reserves everything gets a decision on whether the land may be developed at all, which is the decision worth paying for first when the site is uncertain.
What outline planning permission costs against a full application
The fee for an outline application is worked on the site area rather than on the dwellings, and the professional cost is lower because less is drawn, but the surveys the validation checklist asks for, ecology, transport, flood, are often the same, because the principle cannot be decided without them. The cost of planning application sheet on this site costs the outline and the later reserved matters as two applications, so the client sees the two-stage route's whole cost against a single full application's.
The reserved matters application, and the file that joins the two
A reserved matters application submits the detail the outline reserved, within the time the outline set, and is decided against the outline permission rather than afresh; it has its own fee, its own clock and its own conditions. The two are one scheme in two files, and a reserved matters submitted against the wrong outline or after its time has lapsed is the usual failure. Consentvia Pro keeps the reserved matters application under its outline with the matters it covers and the deadline the outline set, and the timeline sheet reads each application's clock on its own.
Questions people ask about outline planning application
What is the difference between outline and full planning permission?
Full permission approves the whole scheme in detail and can be built from once conditions are discharged; outline approves the principle and reserves detail for a later reserved matters application. Outline is cheaper to obtain and cannot be built from on its own.
How long does outline planning permission last?
The outline sets the time within which the reserved matters must be applied for and, after approval, the time within which development must begin. Both are conditions on the outline, and the file has to keep the dates.
Can reserved matters change what the outline approved?
Only within it: the reserved matters must be consistent with the outline's description, its parameters and its conditions. Detail that departs from the outline is a fresh application, and the guidance cited below draws the line.
Sources
- GOV.UK planning practice guidance, Flexible options for planning permission: section 73 variations, outline and reserved matters, non-material amendments
- GOV.UK planning practice guidance, Fees for planning applications: how the fee for each type is worked
- GOV.UK planning practice guidance, Making an application: the forms, plans and supporting documents, including the planning and heritage statements