Pre-application advice service

Before you apply for planning permission, use our pre-application advice service to:

• talk to a planning officer about your planned work
• get expert advice on what you can develop
• spend less time and money preparing your planning application
• avoid having planning permission refused by fixing any issues
• avoid having to make changes to your planning application after you've submitted it

When you use this service, you'll get a case officer. They will:

• identify national, regional and local policies that are relevant to your planned project
• advise you about your design
• coordinate any specialist advice required from other planning officers
• schedule meetings to an agreed timetable, including presentations to our design review panel
• keep to agreed timescales and deadlines for providing written responses

For larger proposals, they will also:

• help draft and agree heads of terms for a section 106 agreement before you submit a planning application
• help organise local community and councillor engagement with your proposal

We provide free pre-application planning advice for renewable energy, heat and retrofit projects. This includes installing solar panels, heat pumps and external insulation. The service is available to: 

• homeowners 
• ‘not for profit’ community energy organisations