Cost of planning application sheet
- Cost of the application all in
- 11,728
- Professional fees (agent, drawings, surveys)
- 10,100
- Authority's fee as a share of the whole, percent
- £4.93
- Professional fees as a share of the whole, percent
- £86.12
Every figure here comes from the figures you enter and the method stated beside it: your authority's fee for the type, your agent's and consultants' fees, your statutory period and your dates. Where a guide names a published figure it names the source and the date it was read. This site publishes no fee schedule it did not read on the day, no council's register and no legal opinion: what a particular authority will decide is the authority's answer, and the national guidance cited on each guide is the starting point, not the ruling.
The figures above start from a worked example (11,728). Change any input and the answer updates as you type, the way it will when the ecology survey comes in dearer than quoted.
Download the Cost of planning application sheet worked example (CSV)
The cost of planning application sheet costs an application all in from your own quotes rather than from the fee alone: the authority's fee for the application type, read from the fee regulations on the day; the planning agent or consultant; the architect's drawings; every survey and report the validation checklist asks for; the pre-application advice charge; and the odd costs, the CIL forms, the legal, the site notices, against the units or dwellings proposed. It returns the cost all in, the professional fees on their own, the authority's fee and the professional fees as shares of the whole, the cost per unit proposed, and what has been spent before the decision and is sunk if the application is refused. It is the sheet an applicant builds for every scheme, with the arithmetic written down so the client can argue with the quotes rather than the total.
Why the sheet starts from the fee and never stops there
The authority's fee is the figure every applicant knows and the smallest figure on the sheet: on most schemes the agent, the drawings and the surveys are several times the fee, and the surveys are the ones that arrive one at a time after the validation checklist is read. The sheet takes each as its own line so the client sees where the money goes, and it shows the fee as a share of the whole, which is usually the number that ends the argument about whether the fee is expensive. The fee itself has to be read from the regulations on the day; the sheet takes what you read.
The sunk share is the risk the client is really being asked to carry
If the application is refused the fee is gone and so is everything else, and the everything else is the larger part. The sheet returns what has been spent before the decision on its own, because that is the figure that decides whether to go to pre-app first, whether to submit an outline before a full application, and whether a refusal is appealed or a fresh application made. A client who has seen the sunk share before the drawings are commissioned makes a different decision from one who sees it on the refusal notice.
The cost per unit is the figure a scheme is compared on
Dividing the cost all in by the units proposed puts a six-house scheme and a change of use on one scale, and it is what shows that the surveys on a small scheme cost more per unit than on a large one. Consentvia Pro keeps the cost sheet against the application with the quotes and the invoices, so the next scheme to the same authority is costed from the last one's actuals rather than from a fresh set of guesses; the fee guidance cited below is where the fee line starts.
What an applicant asks before running the Cost of planning application sheet
Which figures do I need before using the cost of planning application sheet? The authority's fee for the application type from the fee regulations, quotes from the agent and the architect, a quote for each survey the validation checklist asks for, the pre-application charge from the authority's schedule, and the odd costs. The units proposed come from the scheme.
Where do I find the planning application fee? In the fee regulations for England or Wales, read on the day, because the figures change. The GOV.UK guidance cited below explains how the fee is worked for each type; this sheet takes the figure you read and does not publish one of its own.
Does the sheet handle a section 73 or a discharge of conditions? Yes: put the fee for that application type in, the agent's fee for it, and whatever drawings or surveys it needs, which is usually far less than a full application. The units line is the parent scheme's, so the cost per unit is comparable.
Where the method in this worksheet comes from
GOV.UK planning practice guidance, Fees for planning applications: how the fee for each application type is worked, and where the current figures are published. Why the sheet takes the fee as an input rather than publishing one: the figures are set by regulation and change, so the applicant reads the fee for the type on the day and the sheet does the rest.
GOV.UK planning practice guidance, Before submitting an application: pre-application advice, the charges authorities may make for it, and the validation requirements that decide which surveys are needed. Why the pre-application charge and the surveys are their own lines: the guidance lets an authority charge for pre-app advice and set local validation requirements, and both are costs the fee alone never shows.