Article 4 directions are spreading well beyond London
Twelve councils outside the capital added or extended Article 4 directions in the last quarter. If you were planning to build under permitted development, check your street before you check your budget.
For years Article 4 was a London problem. Islington, Hackney, Camden: boroughs that switched off permitted development across whole neighbourhoods and made everyone apply for everything.
That has changed. In the quarter to March, we counted twelve authorities outside London adding new directions or widening existing ones. Bristol extended cover across Cotham and Montpelier. Manchester now has directions in Didsbury, Chorlton and Withington. Oxford has pushed out across most of the inner suburbs.
Why it matters to you
An Article 4 direction does not ban anything. What it does is remove the automatic permission you would otherwise have, so work that is routine one street over needs a full application inside the line.
The most common way people discover an Article 4 direction is after paying for drawings.
That is the part worth avoiding. The direction is published on the council's policy map, usually buried, and it is almost never mentioned by the estate agent or the surveyor when you buy.
What to do
- Check before you design anything. Street Check will tell you whether directions are published for your council, and the council's own map will show the boundary.
- If you are inside one, budget eight to twelve weeks for an application and treat the design as something that has to satisfy a policy, not just fit inside a box.
- If you are outside one, move reasonably quickly. Councils consult before they designate, and a consultation is a warning.
The honest caveat
The government Planning Data platform is incomplete. Two hundred and five authorities show zero published directions, and several of those certainly have them in force. No published data is not the same as no direction. Check the council map.
Try it on your own house
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