Planning consultant in Birmingham

Planning Consultant Birmingham

If you are planning a property development in Birmingham, you may consider engaging a planning consultant to help you navigate the process.

This article looks at what a planning consultant can bring to your scheme, before highlighting five highly rated planning consultancies in the Birmingham area. One might have the right experience to bring constructive insight to your scheme and help it achieve planning permission.

The Birmingham Planning Outlook

Birmingham in the West Midlands is rapidly growing, with building schemes across the entire city and outlying areas. With a population of over 2.5m, it’s the UK’s second-largest city and has developed as a major commercial hub since the Industrial Revolution. Birmingham is expected to grow by an additional 150,000 people by 2031, creating a need for new homes and jobs. More housing of all types is required: there is an emphasis on improving existing poor-quality housing and replacing that which is beyond repair; the council will also support self-build and custom-build projects. 

The Birmingham Development Plan 2031, part of Birmingham’s Local Plan, is focused on sustainable growth and aims to encourage well-designed, sustainable neighbourhood housing close to jobs and services. The Plan involves the expansion of Birmingham city centre with high-density housing, office development, leisure, and retail facilities. Birmingham City Council is adopting a brownfield-first approach to development, promoting urban regeneration to improve the city.

The Birmingham planning strategy covers growth outside the city centre, with a focus on sustainable neighbourhoods with well-designed houses in mature residential developments.

Why Engage a Birmingham Planning Consultancy?

Their specialist input is often required for schemes facing specific planning issues proving a barrier to obtaining planning permission. Planning consultants’ extensive experience can prove invaluable as they bring detailed knowledge of an area’s overall vision and local priorities, saving you time.

While engaging a planning consultancy will not guarantee obtaining planning permission, it will give you expert advice to enable the best chance of success.

What is the Role of Planning Consultants?

They offer:

• Expert advice on planning and development.
• Expert knowledge of national planning policies, permitted development rules and legal requirements.
• Experience in interpreting local plan policies.
• Strategic planning.

Their work involves:

• Initial project assessment.
• Feasibility studies.
• Preparing planning applications.
• Liaising with planning officers, local authorities and stakeholders.
• Conservation and listed buildings.
• Environmental reports.
• Meeting all regulatory requirements.
• Obtaining planning permission.
• Handling an appeals process.

What is the difference between Planning Consultants and Architects?

While an architect works on the design of a building, creating drawings and plans, planning consultants will ensure compliance with legal and regulatory requirements to achieve planning permission.

Five Dynamic Planning Consultancies in the Birmingham Area

All five have extensive experience in bringing great designs to reality: their work could inspire and help you choose the right Birmingham team of planning consultants to suit your project.

Marrons

Marrons provides development consultancy services from planning to design and works with housebuilders, homeowners, developers, private landowners, and homeowners. Schemes range from changing agricultural buildings into residential homes to heritage projects. Marrons have an excellent track record of advising on preparing and submitting planning applications, promoting development sites and planning appeals.

Marrons secured full planning permission and listed buildings consent for this conversion of a grade II listed building into two homes, along with eight new build houses on associated land in a development in keeping with the local area in Leicestershire.

This little-used agricultural building was made into a sustainable and sympathetic living space using Class Q permitted development rights.

Claremont Planning

Experts in delivering residential developments and land promotion for individuals and housebuilders, Claremont Planning has extensive experience in development control policy and local strategy. This independent West Midlands planning consultancy works on bespoke solutions for developments of all sizes, listed building proposals and planning applications on Green Belt sites. Planning consultants can manage the entire process from assembling a project team to acting as agents, submitting planning applications, and resolving enforcement issues and appeals.

This residential self-build project involved replacing an existing house in an established area with a new contemporary home which received numerous objections from neighbours, ranging from the use of white render and pitched roofs to land level changes. The scheme went to the planning committee where Claremont Planning clarified that it was fitting and sympathetic to the area and planning permission was granted.

Tyler Parkes

This RTPI-chartered town planning consultancy in Birmingham and London works on residential, commercial and industrial projects. It handles schemes from concept design to construction, with clients ranging from individual landowners to major developers and public bodies. Tyler Parkes provides pre-application, outline and full submissions for planning permission, advice on permitted development, appeals and listed building consent applications.

Clients wanted to build a new house in their large garden, and Tyler Parks approached the local council for pre-application advice which established that in principle, it viewed a new home in the area favourably. When the parish council objected to the contemporary design, the application went to the planning committee where Tyler Parks presented the legislative reasons for approval along with the benefits of the house, leading to planning permission being granted.

Plande planning consultants

Plande deals with all matters relating to applications for planning permission, development and environmental issues, offering a bespoke approach. Their work includes outbuildings, barn conversions, house extensions, Green Belt extensions, replacement homes and self-build homes, along with agricultural and equestrian projects. This RTPI-certified chartered planning consultancy operates across the UK, working on planning issues with individuals, developers and planning authorities.

This previously extended bungalow had permission for further extensions which proved uneconomic due to the shape of the site. The property is in Green Belt and Plande’s Birmingham team guided a scheme to raise the roof to create the desired space, using local precedents to show that such an increase in floor space (64%) was acceptable, allowing the development of a modern family home.

CT Planning

This team of residential planning consultants provides expert advice on property, land and development schemes, from planning applications for small residential developments to large-scale projects and bespoke single dwellings. CT Planning acts as planning consultants for a range of house builders and developers in urban and rural areas, handling planning issues with residential, commercial, Green Belt, and permitted development schemes.

Planning permission was achieved for the conversion and extension of existing outbuildings to create a residential house in a sensitive area, partially in the West Midlands Green Belt. The 19th and early 20th-century buildings were non-designated heritage assets. CT Planning successfully addressed planning issues concerning the impact of development in the Green Belt, clarifying that the scheme would enable positive reuse of existing buildings.

CT Planning successfully achieved planning consent for a change of use from a storage unit to two residential units in a Green Belt area. A structural report was used to prove that the building was of permanent and substantial construction, demonstrating that its reuse would not constitute inappropriate development in the Green Belt.

Over To You

These examples demonstrate how a planning consultancy with an excellent track record can help to get a challenging project from the drawing board to achieving planning permission. Hiring the right planning consultancy to handle your planning applications may be the final link in the chain of professionals needed to get your scheme across the line.