The Government recently announced that from October a quarter of the 320,000 household planning applications will be exempt from planning permission. It believes that this has the potential to save the UK up to £50m a year.

The changes will allow homeowners to build both loft conversions and rear extensions without planning permission, as long as they fall within the size restrictions laid out for different types of property. A loft conversion will be allowed to extend up to 20cms back from the eaves of a house; in a terrace it will be allowed a total volume of 40m 3 and for a detached or semi-detached house this increases to 50m 3 . A one or two-storey rear extension will be allowed to extend 3m back for a terrace/semi-detached house and 4m for a detached property.

As well as saving up to £1,000 due to not having to submit a planning application, households will not be required to pay any extra council tax on their improved properties.
The British Property Federation (BPF) has welcomed the announcement. Jonathan Seager, senior policy officer for the BPF, said: “The planning system is suffering from a lack of resources therefore we should be focusing what resources there are on applications which affect the most citizens and have the ability to significantly improve an area. We see this announcement as hopefully the start of some common sense changes the government can easily make to improve the planning system.”