Report a breach

Suspected breaches of planning control should be reported in our web form.

It is the applicant’s responsibility to ensure that development is carried out in line with their planning permission but we also monitor new developments to ensure compliance.

When considering how enforcement cases are dealt with, it is worth remembering:

• A breach of planning control is not a criminal offence (other than in a few limited circumstances) and so immediate legal action is not usually an option
• We cannot take action against a development which we would have granted planning permission had it been applied for in the normal way
• Government advice urges negotiation to try and resolve enforcement issues, other than in the most serious cases, before formal action is taken. This has implications for the length of time the process can take
• People can apply for planning permission retrospectively in an attempt to regularise unauthorised development.