Seeing work begin does not tell you whether planning permission is required or what has been authorised. Start with the planning record and the actual activity. If you suspect a breach, describe the difference and ask the council to investigate through its official enforcement route.
Keep an enforcement report separate from a comment on a live application. The council may need to consider both, but they ask different questions and may use different references.
Compare like with like
Find the decision notice, approved plans and any later decisions linked to the site. Check the drawing numbers and revisions identified in the permission. A drawing visible on the register is not necessarily the approved version.
Describe what appears different: the position of a structure, a window, a raised area, an operating time or a use. State how you know. If you cannot establish a measurement safely and accurately, identify the uncertainty instead of presenting an estimate as a survey.
National permitted development rights may also be relevant. The absence of an ordinary planning application alone is not proof of a breach. Use the permission-routes guide to distinguish an application, national rights and a certificate.
Read a condition in full
A condition may require action before work starts, before occupation, during operation or for the lifetime of a development. Copy its number, wording and reason, and check for a linked decision approving details.
For example, an approved document may explain the screening or operating arrangement the condition requires. Compare the actual situation with the relevant requirement, not simply with a neighbour's expectation about what permission should have said.
The conditions guide explains this reading task. A submission seeking approval of details is not itself the approval; look for the decision and the documents it identifies.
Make a factual enforcement report
Use the council's current official reporting instructions. Give the site location, relevant application or permission reference, the suspected difference and the dates of your observations. Identify any immediate factual change since an earlier report.
A short chronology can help: what was observed, when, where and which document appears relevant. Use photographs taken lawfully and avoid unnecessary information about occupants, workers or daily routines. Do not enter a site or interfere with works to collect evidence.
Check the council's privacy and disclosure information before sending sensitive material. Do not assume an enforcement report will be handled exactly like a public planning comment, or promise another person that their identity can never be disclosed.
Keep the receipt and reference. An acknowledgement confirms a reporting step, not a finding that a breach exists or that a particular enforcement action will follow.
Understand the council's judgement
National guidance explains that enforcement action is discretionary and should be proportionate. The authority considers whether there is a breach and what action is expedient in the public interest. Investigation, discussion, an application or formal action can involve different steps.
Reporting a concern does not automatically stop construction or require demolition. Nor does an apparent lack of immediate action establish that the development has been approved. Ask for the status of the investigation through the published route, using the existing reference.
If the problem concerns building safety, an operating nuisance or a private boundary, identify the appropriate separate route. A planning report does not replace another authority's role or determine a private dispute.
Comment on a retrospective application on its merits
Section 73A allows an application for planning permission for development already carried out. The fact that an application is retrospective does not guarantee approval, and an invitation to apply is not a promise of permission.
Read what the application actually seeks to retain or change. Compare that description with the works on the ground. Identify any discrepancy, but keep the planning argument focused on the development's effects and relevant policy rather than a demand for punishment.
If a window has already been installed, for example, describe its actual relationship with the affected room or garden and distinguish what you have observed from an assumption about future use. Use the privacy and outlook evidence for the underlying planning issue.
Follow the retrospective application's own notice and deadline. Do not assume an earlier enforcement report is automatically a representation on the application.
Avoid using an old time-limit rule
Enforcement time provisions have changed, and transitional arrangements and exceptions can matter. The relevant question is not answered merely by the year a photograph was taken or a statement that something has existed “for years”.
Provide accurate dated evidence where relevant, but do not calculate lawfulness from an incomplete history. A lawful-development-certificate application is a different process from a retrospective planning application. Formal notices and related appeal rights also need their own documents checked promptly.
The decision and appeal guide explains the next reading task. This guide helps organise evidence; it does not determine a breach, predict the council's action or provide a legal challenge strategy.
Sources and corrections
Source scope checked on 27 October 2026. Contains public sector information under the Open Government Licence v3.0 where applicable. No third-party drawings or photos reproduced. Report a correction with the sentence and source.
Enforcement and post-permission PPG — Paragraphs001–014,018–019. - TCPA 1990, section 73A — 73A(1)–(3). - TCPA 1990, section 171B — 171B(1)–(4),2024amendmentannotations. - Lawful development certificate guidance — Paragraphs001–009.