13. Amendments to planning applications / permissions

Cannock Chase District Council expects planning applications to be submitted in a complete and assessable form, supported by all relevant plans, reports and technical information.

The Council will normally determine applications on the basis of the information submitted at validation and will not generally seek or accept amendments after validation. Applicants are therefore strongly encouraged to use the Council’s pre-application advice service before submitting an application, particularly for major, complex or sensitive proposals.

The Council will not accept unsolicited amendments. Revised plans or additional information should not be submitted in response to objections, consultee comments or officer concerns unless specifically requested by the planning case officer.

Amendments will only normally be accepted where the proposal is broadly acceptable in principle, the change is not significant, the amendment is necessary to complete the assessment or improve the scheme and no significant / full re-consultation is required.  Amendments would need to be accompanied by an Extension of Time agreement to ensure the application is still determined within the given time period. Only one opportunity to amend will normally be provided.

The processing of amendments and additional work beyond the standard determination process constitute a discretionary activity and as such a charging schedule has been set up to allow the Council to process amendments. The charges will be applied on a cost recovery basis only and will not exceed the cost of providing the service. The fees will be implemented from 1st September 2026 as follows:
 

Householder/LDC/Advert - £75

Minors (including Change Of Use) - £100

Majors - £250 per amendment

The Council will not normally accept amendments where the proposal is fundamentally unacceptable, where significant redesign is required, where a materially different proposal would result, or where a fresh consultation exercise would be necessary. In such cases, the application may be refused or the applicant may be advised to withdraw and submit a revised application following pre-application advice.

Amendments to a scheme after a decision

You can apply for a non-material amendment to an existing planning permission. Section 96A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (amended by Planning Act 2008) covers this. You may need to make a change after the planning decision because:

Building Regulations require a change to the proposals unplanned issues arise when construction or operations start.

Local Planning Authorities may allow small changes as 'non-material amendments'. The benefits are:

-    the applicant avoids the time and costs of making a new planning application
-    the Local Planning Authority can make the best use of its resources.
-    There will be no consultations, publicity or notifications because a non-material amendment is not an application for planning permission.

Non-material amendments must:

-    be within the scope of the original planning permission
-    not result in a materially different scheme that has a differing impact.


When a non-material amendment is accepted, it means that:

-    enforcement action will not be taken against the breach of planning control
-    there is an accurate record of the development as completed.

There is no statutory definition for 'non-material' changes.  It depends on the context and is determined by the Local Planning Authority. If the scheme is not considered to be non - material then a Section 73 application or a new full application may be required.

Amendments Protocol Fee
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