What is the difference between planning permission and building regulations?

Almost every problem a householder has with a building project traces back to treating these as one thing. A builder saying "you don't need planning for that" is often correct and almost never the whole answer, because the job still needs building control. The two systems have different tests, different decision-makers, different paperwork and different consequences for ignoring them.

Safety

Step by step

1. Understand what planning permission is about.Whether a development is acceptable in that location: its size, siting, height, appearance, effect on neighbours' light and privacy, on the street scene, on trees and on highway safety. It is a land-use judgement, made by the local planning authority.
2. Understand what building regulations are about.Whether the work is constructed to the required standard: structural stability, fire safety and escape, drainage, ventilation, insulation and energy, sound, access, and the safety of electrical and gas installations. It is a technical standard, checked by building control.
3. Note that they are decided by different people.Planning by the planning department of your council. Building control either by the council's building control team or, in England and Wales, by a private-sector building control body. In Scotland, by the local authority verifier under the building standards system.
4. Note that the outputs are different documents.Planning produces a decision notice, or a lawful development certificate confirming none was needed. Building control produces a completion certificate, or a competent person scheme certificate where a registered trade self-certified. A conveyancing solicitor asks for whichever applies.
5. Work out which gate your job has to pass.A rear extension normally needs both. A loft conversion inside permitted development limits usually needs building regulations but not planning. Replacing a boiler needs building regulations only. Repainting an unlisted house needs neither. There is no pattern to memorise — check each one.
6. Do not accept one answer for both questions.If a builder or a designer says "it's permitted development", the correct next question is: and what about building control, who is applying, and who gives me the completion certificate?
7. Remember that both systems are devolved.England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have separate planning legislation and separate building standards. Scotland requires a building warrant granted before work starts, which has no direct equivalent in England. Advice written for one nation may be wrong in another.
8. Keep the paperwork from both, permanently.Put the decision notice, approved drawings, certificates and any scheme paperwork in one place with the deeds. Missing paperwork is discovered at sale, years later, when it is hardest and most expensive to fix.

Tips

• There are other consents entirely separate from both: listed building consent, conservation area consent, the Party Wall etc. Act, a highway licence for a skip or scaffold, and a build-over agreement with the water company for work near a public sewer.
• Planning permission does not authorise you to breach building regulations, and building control approval does not make an unauthorised development lawful.
• If the property is a flat or maisonette, assume the answer to the planning question is different from a house — permitted development for extensions and outbuildings does not apply to flats.

Common mistakes

• Treating "no planning permission needed" as "no permission needed" — It answers only the land-use question. The work can still be fully notifiable to building control, and the missing completion certificate is what stops a sale.
• Assuming the builder is handling both — Responsibility for the application usually rests with the building owner unless the contract clearly says otherwise. Agree in writing who applies, who pays the fee and who receives the certificate.

Questions people ask