Planning Enforcement Charter 2026
Planning Enforcement Charter 2026 - Investigating possible breaches of planning control
The Council will always treat information about the identity of people who report breaches to us in confidence and will only disclose it when required to do so by law.
We do encourage you to provide your name and contact details, as we may require further information from you as the investigation progresses or to understand the impacts of the breach and how it affects you. This also allows us to keep you informed of progress and the outcome of our investigations.
Where an anonymous observation is received, we reserve the right to choose not to investigate. Where it relates to one of our priority areas, or it is judged to be in the public interest, we are more likely to investigate breaches that have been reported anonymously.
Registration of Your Observation
When we receive an observation, we first check that it includes all the information we need for an enforcement case to be investigated. Where an enquiry relates to non-planning matters, such as neighbour disputes or other civil issues, these cannot be investigated by the Council. If your enquiry relates to another function of the Council, we will direct this to the appropriate department. Upon a justified complaint being received, a case will be opened and published on our Public Access system.
Service Standard - 1
After we carry out initial checks, if the issue is something we can investigate through planning enforcement, we will open a case and let you know by email or letter within 5 working days. Our acknowledgement will give you a case number, contact details, and confirm whether we plan to visit the site.
In some cases, we may require further information from you about the suspected breach, such as photographs or evidence of development or activity, before or instead of visiting the site. Additional investigation at this stage may also be required for some cases to establish if a breach has occurred, such as utilising our legal powers to seek information from the developer(s) about the use of land and/or parties that have an interest in the land. This can include us serving a Planning Contravention Notice (PCN). The serving of notices for this purpose may lengthen the process and, if this is required, this will be explained to you where possible.
