With planning applications taking increasingly long time frames, it can be tempting to get started without formal consent. Planning consultant Martin Gaine takes a look at what happens if you undertake building work without planning permission in place

Your builders are on site, ready to go. You booked them months ago, assuming your planning permission would be through by now. But the planning system is gummed up and, though you are confident consent will eventually be granted, should you take the risk and press on? Or do you delay the build, risking losing your builders to another job?

It’s not uncommon

Conventional wisdom has it that you should always obtain planning consent before starting a building project. But every year thousands of people crack on without it, building something that doesn’t have planning permission at all, isn’t quite in accordance with an approval/ failing to comply with the conditions attached to a planning consent.

In most cases, people are acting in good faith and make an innocent mistake. The builders increase the height of an extension to add in some extra insulation without realising that the structure is now taller than what was approved, for instance. Or a homeowner builds an extension under the assumption it’s permitted development (meaning that planning consent is not needed), only to discover later that they have actually misunderstood the rules or that their house does not fall within the criteria.