How long does planning permission last?

General guidance, not advice. This guide explains how UK planning law works in general terms. It is not legal or planning advice for your specific site, and the law changes over time and differs between England and Wales. Check the current rules with your local planning authority or a qualified planning professional before you act.

Planning permission does not last forever. In England, a full planning permission must be implemented within three years of the date it is granted; in Wales the window is five years. If you do not begin the development in time, the permission lapses and you have to apply again. Separate from that is the question of how long the council takes to decide your application - in England the statutory targets are 8 weeks for minor applications, 13 weeks for major development and 16 weeks where an Environmental Impact Assessment is needed (Wales uses 8 weeks for most applications and 16 for EIA development).

Those two clocks - how long the permission lasts once granted, and how long the council takes to grant it - are set by the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, the National Planning Policy Framework and, in Wales, Planning Policy Wales. This guide covers both for England and Wales, with the section numbers you need to check the law yourself.

How long does full planning permission last?

Section 91 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 attaches a time-limit condition to every full planning permission. Under section 91(5), the "applicable period" is:

• three years in England, beginning with the date the permission is granted; or
• five years in Wales, beginning with the date the permission is granted.

That is the default. Under section 91(1)(b) the local planning authority (or the Secretary of State, on appeal) can direct a longer or shorter period, having regard to the development plan and any other material considerations. If a decision notice is issued without any time-limit condition at all, section 91(3) deems the standard three- or five-year condition to be imposed anyway - so a missing condition does not give you an open-ended permission.

The National Planning Policy Framework (December 2024, paragraph 81) goes further for housing: local planning authorities should consider imposing a shorter timescale than the default where it would speed up delivery without threatening viability. For major housing schemes, expect the council to ask why any earlier permission on the same site did not start.

The clock starts on the date the permission is granted - the date on the decision notice, not the date you receive it. For an appeal decision, it starts on the date the Inspector or Secretary of State issues the decision (more on appeal decisions below).

What counts as "beginning" development?

The three- or five-year limit is a deadline for beginning development, not finishing it. Once you have begun, you generally have a long time to complete the works - the permission stays live for the development you have started, subject to any phasing conditions - though an LPA can serve a completion notice (section 93H in England, section 94 in Wales) in exceptional cases, and if it takes effect and the works stay incomplete the permission can become invalid (section 93J in England, section 95 in Wales).

What "begun" means is defined by section 56 of the 1990 Act. Under section 56(2), development is treated as begun on the earliest date on which any material operation comprised in the development begins to be carried out. Section 56(4) lists the "material operations":

• any work of construction in the course of erecting a building;
• any work of demolition of a building;
• digging a trench that is to contain the foundations, or part of the foundations, of a building;
• laying any underground main or pipe to those foundations, or to that trench;
• any operation in the course of laying out or constructing a road, or part of a road; and
• any change in the use of the land that amounts to "material development".

The trap is that some activities do not count. Clearing the site, putting up a fence, or laying a temporary access track may not amount to a "material operation" for your development. If you are up against the deadline, do something that unmistakably matches a section 56(4) category, and keep evidence - photographs, dated contractor records - that it happened within the window.

Outline planning permission: two clocks to watch

Outline permission works differently, and it runs on two separate clocks set by section 92 of the 1990 Act. You have to keep both in view.

The first clock is for the reserved matters application. Under section 92(2)(a), you must apply for approval of the reserved matters (typically layout, scale, appearance, landscaping and access, so far as reserved) within three years of the date the outline permission is granted. This period is the same in England and Wales.

The second clock is for starting development, and here England and Wales diverge:

• England (section 92(2)(b)): development must begin within two years from the final approval of the reserved matters - or, if different matters are approved on different dates, two years from the final approval of the last one.
• Wales (section 92(2)(c)): development must begin no later than five years from the date of the outline grant, or (if later) two years from the final approval of the reserved matters.

As with full permission, the authority can substitute longer or shorter periods under section 92(4). And under section 93(2), a reserved matter is "finally approved" when the application is granted - or, if it goes to appeal, when the appeal is determined.

The practical point is that outline permission gives you less start-the-clock certainty than full permission. In England you could, in theory, sit on an outline consent for nearly three years before submitting reserved matters, then have another two years to start - but only if the reserved matters are approved on time. Miss the three-year reserved-matters deadline and the outline permission itself is gone. See our outline vs full planning permission guide for the trade-offs.

How long does the council take to decide?

So far this is about how long a permission lasts. The other half of "how long does planning permission take" is how long the council takes to issue it. In England the statutory targets are set by article 34 of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015:

• 8 weeks for non-major (most minor and householder) applications;
• 13 weeks for major development;
• 10 weeks for technical details consent and (since August 2021) public service infrastructure development; and
• 16 weeks where the application requires an Environmental Impact Assessment.

These are targets, not absolute deadlines - the clock pauses if the applicant agrees a longer period in writing, which is common for major schemes negotiated under a Planning Performance Agreement. The National Planning Policy Framework (paragraph 48) says decisions should be made "as quickly as possible, and within statutory timescales unless a longer period has been agreed by the applicant in writing."

Behind the statutory targets sits a government "planning guarantee": no application should spend more than a year with decision-makers, including any appeal. In practice that means 26 weeks for major applications and 16 weeks for non-major. If no extension has been agreed and those deadlines pass undetermined, the application fee is refunded.

What if the council misses the target?

If the statutory period has passed and no extension has been agreed, you have a right of appeal to the Secretary of State against non-determination under section 78(2) of the 1990 Act. The Inspector then decides the application as if it had been made to him in the first place - which means the appeal can be allowed or refused on the merits, so it is not a rubber stamp.

The appeal deadlines matter: most planning appeals must be lodged within six months of the decision notice, or - for a non-determination appeal - within six months of when the decision should have been given. Householder and minor commercial appeals have a shorter 12-week window. In England, where a council is formally designated for poor performance, section 62A lets you send the application straight to the Secretary of State in the first place.

Real decision times vary a lot. Across the last two years of tracked decisions, Bristol City Council determined applications in a median of 42 days with about 73% inside the eight-week target, while Leeds City Council sat at a median of 52 days with about 74% inside eight weeks. The spread is wide, though - check your council's live figure before you bank on a date.

Wales sets its own statutory determination timescales in the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (Wales) Order 2012, and Welsh Technical Advice Notes refer to the normal eight-week period for standard applications; the section 78 non-determination appeal applies across both nations. There is a real difference on the decision target as well, not just the implementation period: Wales has no 13-week major-development target. Under article 22 of the 2012 Order the determination period in Wales is 8 weeks for all applications other than EIA development, which gets 16 weeks. England, by contrast, gives major development 13 weeks, minor development 8 weeks, and reserves 16 weeks for EIA development. So Wales has no separate major tier: a major non-EIA application in Wales carries the same 8-week target as a minor one, against England's 13 weeks - Wales is actually quicker on paper for major schemes, though the implementation period it grants is longer.

Discharging conditions: how long, and can it be done after consent?

Most permissions come with conditions - some must be discharged before you start (pre-commencement conditions), others before occupation or at a later stage. The gov.uk guidance on use of planning conditions sets the timetable.

When you apply to discharge a condition, the local planning authority must give notice of its decision within eight weeks of receiving the application, or any longer period agreed in writing. For a condition on EIA development that must be approved before development may begin, the period is 16 weeks. If the council has not decided within 12 weeks, it must return your fee.

Yes - conditions can be discharged after consent is granted. That is the normal sequence: you get the decision notice, then work through the conditions in the order the notice lists them. The guidance suggests listing them in the order they must be satisfied - the time-limit condition first, then approved details, then pre-commencement conditions, then pre-occupancy or other stage conditions, then post-occupancy monitoring. A fee is payable for each discharge request, and the fee cannot be paid retrospectively.

If the council drags its feet, two levers exist. First, the deemed discharge procedure (article 28 of the DMPO 2015): once at least six weeks have passed since your application was received, you can serve a "deemed discharge" notice; the date you specify must be at least 14 days after the council receives that notice, and if the council fails to determine by that date the condition is treated as discharged. Some conditions are exempted by Schedule 6 to the Order, and you can agree with the council that deemed discharge will not apply. Second, you have a right of appeal under section 78 if a discharge application is refused or not determined within the statutory timescale.

One worth knowing in advance: under section 100ZA of the 1990 Act, a pre-commencement condition cannot be imposed without your written agreement (with limited exceptions). So the conditions that gate your start date should have been negotiated before the decision was issued, not sprung on you afterwards.

Can you extend or renew a lapsed permission?

No - not automatically, and not by a quick administrative fix. A planning permission that has passed its implementation period is dead, and section 93(4) of the 1990 Act spells out the consequence: development carried out after the date the condition requires is treated as not authorised by the permission. In other words, building out a lapsed permission is the same as having no permission at all.

The common follow-up questions, and the answers:

• Can I use a section 73 application to extend the time limit? No. The gov.uk guidance on flexible options for planning permissions is explicit: "Planning permission cannot be granted under section 73 to extend the time limit within which a development must be started or an application for approval of reserved matters must be made." Section 73 varies other conditions; the implementation condition must stay as it is.
• Was there not a COVID extension? Yes, but it is spent, and England-only. Section 93A of the 1990 Act automatically extended permissions due to expire in the second half of 2020 to 1 May 2021. Section 93B provided the same extension for permissions due to expire between 23 March 2020 and the commencement of section 17 of the Business and Planning Act 2020, but only on application for additional environmental approval (deemed granted after 28 days). Both reliefs have long since closed and no equivalent applies today.
• Does the "four-year rule" or "ten-year rule" revive it? No. Those are enforcement time limits (section 171B), not implementation rules. In Wales, enforcement for unauthorised operational development, or a change of use to a single dwellinghouse, is barred after four years; in England the equivalent limit is ten years. If you built out a lapsed permission and the council did not act within that window, the development could eventually become immune from enforcement - and you could seek a lawful development certificate under section 191 to prove it. But that is a certificate of lawfulness for an unauthorised use, not a revival of the original planning permission. The permission itself stays lapsed.

The practical route for a lapsed permission is a fresh planning application, judged against the policies and material considerations in force now - which may have moved against you (an updated local plan, a new constraint, changed national policy). Getting pre-application advice before you reapply is usually worthwhile, especially if several years have passed.

How long does an appeal decision last?

If you appeal a refusal and the Inspector grants permission, that appeal decision is itself a "planning permission granted" for the purposes of section 91 - so it carries a fresh implementation period of three years in England or five in Wales, running from the date of the appeal decision. The original, refused permission is irrelevant; the appeal decision is your live consent.

For an outline appeal, the section 92 clocks (three years to submit reserved matters, then two years to begin in England - or five years or two years in Wales) restart from the appeal decision date.

Note the deadlines for getting to appeal in the first place: six months from the decision notice for most appeals, 12 weeks for householder and minor commercial appeals, and 28 days where an appeal is linked to an enforcement notice. The Planning Inspectorate aims to determine appeals within 26 weeks as part of the planning guarantee.

A practical timing checklist

1. Confirm the implementation period on your decision notice - the default three years (England) or five (Wales), or whatever the council directed.
2. Diary the reserved matters deadline if your permission is outline - three years from grant, with no extension available via section 73.
3. Identify the pre-commencement conditions that gate your start, and apply to discharge them early; you have eight weeks (16 for EIA) and a 12-week fee-refund backstop.
4. If the council has not decided your application on time, weigh a non-determination appeal under section 78 against agreeing an extension - the appeal reopens the merits.
5. If a permission is about to lapse, consider whether a material operation under section 56 can lawfully begin in time; otherwise plan a fresh application rather than assuming you can extend.

Disclaimer: this guide is general information, not legal or planning advice, and reading it does not create any professional relationship. Planning law and national policy change, and vary between England and Wales. Always confirm the current position with the relevant legislation, your local planning authority, or a qualified planning consultant before making a decision.

Sources: the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (sections 56, 78, 91, 92, 93, 171B), the National Planning Policy Framework (December 2024), Planning Policy Wales (Edition 12), and gov.uk planning guidance on use of conditions, determining an application, appeals and flexible options for planning permissions. Limits reflect the consolidated legislation as at July 2026; always check the live legislation and your council's local position.