You can download the City of Edinburgh Council’s Planning Enforcement Charter 2019 here.
Planning enforcement involves two issues – whether a breach of planning control has taken place, and whether it is expedient or appropriate to take enforcement action. That decision is within the planning authority’s sole discretion.
Possible breaches of planning control can include:
• Work being carried out without planning permission or consent
• An unauthorised change of use
• An unauthorised operational development
• Failure to comply with conditions attached to a permission or consent
• Departures from plans approved in association with a planning permission or consent
• Tree preservation orders in conservation areas
• Advertisement regulations
• Hazardous substances consent
• Untidy land (but note that this seeks to control cases which have a relatively severe impact on the amenity of an area.)
Monitoring of conditions is undertaken by the Council’s Development Management service. Members of the public can provide information to the Planning Enforcement service when they judge that the conditions attached to a consent are not being complied with or have not been discharged in a satisfactory way. The large number of permissions granted each year makes the involvement of members of the public invaluable in the monitoring process.
When breaches of conditions are identified, they are investigated in the same way as breaches of planning control.
How to make a complaint
Preliminary enquiries can be made by telephone or at the Reception area at Waverley Court, 4 East Market Street, but must be followed up by using the Council’s Report it form.
For all preliminary enquiries, whether by letter or e-mail, the following information is essential:
• the address of the property concerned
• details of the suspected breach of planning control, with times and dates if relevant
• your name, telephone number and address
• an e-mail address if available or if the complaint is submitted electronically
• how the breach affects you
• whether the enquiry is to be treated confidentially
Notes
Time limited to Four Years for Enforcement Action
This applies to “unauthorised operational development” (i.e. the carrying out of building, engineering, mining or other operations in, on, over or under land) and change of use to a single dwellinghouse. After four years following the breach of planning control the development becomes lawful, and no enforcement action can be taken.
Time limited to Ten Years for Enforcement Action
This applies to all other development including change of use (other than to a single dwellinghouse) and breaches of condition, after which the development becomes lawful if no enforcement action is commenced.