What drawings do you need for planning permission — and why the list matters
Ask any planning officer why applications stall and the answer is rarely the design — it is the drawings. Every council publishes a validation checklist, and an application missing a required drawing, drawn at the wrong scale, or lacking a scale bar and north point is not refused; it is simply not validated. It sits in a queue, an invalidation letter goes out, and your 8 week statutory clock never starts. The validation requirements themselves are set nationally by the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015, then extended by each council's local list. Knowing exactly what drawings you need for planning permission before you submit is the difference between a decision in two months and a project stuck in limbo.
The core requirement is consistent across England. A householder application — an extension, loft conversion or garage conversion to your own home — needs drawings showing the property as it stands and as you propose it: floor plans, elevations and, in most cases, sections, plus the site plans that fix the proposal in its legal and geographic context. Larger schemes such as new-build houses and flat conversions carry the same core set plus supporting documents, most commonly a design and access statement.
The sections below walk through each drawing in turn, the supporting documents councils ask for, and the point at which structural calculations enter the picture. If you would rather skip the homework: we prepare complete, validation-ready planning application drawing packs for London and the Home Counties in seven days, with revisions free until your council issues a decision.
