Gavin Lawlor

If it's your driveway, if it's your entrance and there's two piers and you want to widen that, so there's an express de-exemption.

So the way the planning acts work, the acts allow for the regulations to list out a number of exemptions.

Everything else requires planning permission.

And then within the act as well, there's a list of what they call de-exemptions.

No matter, even if you're in that list, if certain circumstances apply, you're not exempt.

One of those is, one of those de-exemptions is for road safety.

And it says you can't widen an entrance onto a public road that's wider than four metres.

If you do that, you need planning permission.

You get five years unless you've applied for more.

You can apply for more.

And I would always strongly advise people when they are actually applying for a planning permission, if you're uncertain, look for a longer duration.

You can get a longer duration.

And there's no limit on the maximum duration.

it is up to the planning authority the duration that they grant you.

So if you ask for 20 years, they might only give you, still only give you five.

But five years is the minimum and you can extend that.

There are provisions in the Act that allow you to extend it.

Well, it's one and the same thing.

So if he wants to change it from what he's got planning permission into something else, he needs planning permission.

So whether he does that before he commences construction or after he commences construction, before he uses it, he needs his planning permission.