What happens after planning permission is granted

The decision notice has arrived, either for your own project or for the site next door, and whichever way it went it is rarely the end of the matter. A grant comes with conditions and a deadline, and some of those conditions have to be cleared before any work starts. A refusal can be appealed or reworked. An approved scheme can still change shape after the decision. Here is what each outcome sets in motion, for England unless the text says otherwise.

If permission is granted

Read the conditions before the headline. Permission is granted subject to the numbered conditions on the decision notice, each with a short reason, and they decide what can be built, when work can start and how the finished development has to behave. Two appear on almost every grant: a time limit, and a condition tying the development to the approved drawings. The rest are specific to the site.

Chichester's decision on 25/02012/FUL, a change of use to a single house with rear extensions issued on 28 October 2025, is a typical notice. Condition 1 sets the three year time limit. Condition 2 lists the four approved drawings. Condition 3 stops any development, demolition included, until a construction and environmental management plan has been approved. Condition 4 requires bat, bird and hedgehog boxes before anyone moves in, and conditions 6 and 7 rule out a roof terrace on the extensions and any external lighting without an approved scheme, for good. The council's register shows the permission expiring on 28 October 2028.

Conditions sort by when they bite: before work starts, before the building is used, and for the life of the development. What a planning condition means covers the three kinds and how to tell them apart. A grant is also permission rather than an obligation. Nobody has to build what was approved, and some permissions are never used.

The deadline to start, and what counts as starting

A full planning permission in England must normally be begun within three years of the date of the grant, under section 91 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. In Wales the default period is five years, and in Scotland three. A council can set a different period, so the condition on the notice is what governs. Outline permissions run to their own clock: the reserved matters must be applied for within three years, and the development begun within two years of the last of them being approved. The application types guide explains reserved matters.

Beginning does not mean getting far. Under section 56 a development begins on the date its first material operation starts, and the Act lists what counts: construction work on the building, demolition, digging a trench for the foundations, laying a main or pipe to the foundations, or laying out a road. Once a permission has been lawfully begun it no longer lapses, which is why some owners dig a short length of foundation trench before the deadline on a site they are not ready to build.

Two things undo that. Work carried out in breach of a pre-commencement condition may not count as a lawful start, so every such condition has to be discharged first; discharging a condition covers the application, the fee and the eight week clock. And the deadline cannot be stretched after the event. A section 73 application cannot be used to give a permission more time to start, and a permission whose deadline has passed unused cannot be varied under section 73 at all. A new application is the only route.

What else is needed before work starts

Planning permission answers one question, whether the development is acceptable in planning terms, and it is rarely the only consent a project needs. Building regulations approval is separate. It covers structure, fire safety, insulation and drainage, and it applies to most extensions and new buildings whether or not they needed planning permission. Listed building consent is separate again where a listed building is involved. Party walls, restrictive covenants and the terms of a lease are private matters that no planning decision touches.

Two planning requirements also bite at the start. Where the council charges the Community Infrastructure Levy, a new home is potentially liable, and so is a larger extension. Government guidance says most reliefs and exemptions, such as those for self-builders and for residential extensions, must be claimed and approved before development commences, and a liable development needs a commencement notice with the council before work begins; starting without one can bring a surcharge. And a permission granted on an application made since 12 February 2024, or 2 April 2024 for a small site, carries the biodiversity gain condition unless the development is exempt: work may not begin until the council has approved a biodiversity gain plan. Householder applications are exempt, as are applications made since 6 August 2026 for developments of 0.2 hectares or below.

If permission is refused

The notice states the reasons for refusal, each tied to a policy or a harm, and the officer's report sets out the reasoning behind each one. The applicant has two broad options: change the scheme and apply again, or appeal.

A fresh application can deal with the stated reasons directly, and where the problem is something a revision can fix, such as the depth of an extension or the position of a window, it is often the quicker route. It now pays the full fee. The free second application within twelve months ended in England on 6 December 2023, so advice that still mentions a free go is out of date.

An appeal puts the same scheme in front of an independent inspector at the Planning Inspectorate. The deadline is 12 weeks from the decision for a householder or minor commercial application, and six months for most others. An applicant can also appeal against conditions they consider unreasonable, and against a council that has not decided within eight weeks, or thirteen for major development, which how long a planning decision takes covers. The appeal gets its own reference alongside the council's, earlier comments are passed to the inspector, and the decision is published. A dismissed appeal usually settles a site's prospects for some time.

Wales and Scotland run their own routes. Welsh appeals go to Planning and Environment Decisions Wales. In Scotland a refusal made by an officer under delegated powers goes to the council's own local review body, and other refusals to the DPEA, as set out in the Scotland guide. Everywhere, only the applicant can appeal.

Changes after approval

Approved schemes change more often than people expect. Small tweaks go through as non-material amendments under section 96A. Bigger changes, such as a revised layout, different materials or longer opening hours, go through a section 73 application to vary or remove a condition, usually the one listing the approved drawings. Chichester's 26/00888/FUL is one. Validated on 20 April 2026, it asked to vary the approved plans, ecology and materials conditions of SY/21/03089/FUL, an earlier permission to turn a building at Selsey into a single house, to allow design and materials revisions. It was granted on 15 June, exactly eight weeks later.

A section 73 grant is a new permission sitting alongside the original, which is how a scheme you thought settled can change shape. Each of these appears on the register against the same site, and the application types guide explains how they are coded. If what is being built departs from the approved drawings and no such application is visible, that is a question for the council's enforcement team.

If the decision was next door

Neighbours cannot appeal a grant anywhere in the UK. The only challenge is a judicial review of whether the decision was lawfully made, not whether it was right, and in England and Wales the claim must be filed within six weeks of the decision. That needs a solicitor from the first day, and what an objection can and cannot do explains why the application stage is the one that counts. The six weeks run from the grant whether or not anyone tells you, and in England nobody has to: how to find out if planning permission has been granted covers where a decision appears.

What a neighbour can still do is watch. The conditions say how the build has to be run, such as the hours of work, a construction management plan or obscure glazing to a side window. Applications to discharge those conditions appear on the register without any notice to neighbours, and changes to the scheme appear there too. A development operating outside its conditions can be reported to the council's enforcement team, which is not obliged to act, and a breach of condition left unchallenged for ten years becomes immune, as the certificate of lawfulness guide sets out.

Where this guide stops

The fees, deadlines and appeal rules above are England's unless the text says otherwise. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland run their own procedures, and the guides to Wales and Scotland cover the main differences. The Community Infrastructure Levy and biodiversity net gain both have exemptions and procedures well beyond the summary here, so check the council's guidance before work starts. A section 106 agreement, where there is one, carries obligations of its own. None of this is legal advice.

Keeping track

All of this plays out on the public register: conditions discharged, amendments sought, resubmissions lodged and appeals decided. Application pages here show the status and decision as published, with dates, and link to the council record. A decision alert on the paid tiers tells you when applications in your area are decided, and how long decisions take covers the timetable in the run-up. For the process before the decision, start with how to object to a planning application. If you are using the register to find work rather than to object, read how to get leads from planning applications.