This is a non-statutory service offered by the Development Management Team to support proposals at an early stage in the development process prior to the submission of a planning application.
Pre-application advice consists of an initial planning assessment of a proposal made by planning officers in the form of a Written Evaluation before an application is submitted. It is recommended prior to costly commitments in terms of time and money by prospective applicants.
This document contains full details about the service, what constitutes a pre-application enquiry, how pre-application enquiries are processed and the level of advice that we provide.
It is essential that you read this document before you submit a pre-application enquiry as this provides the details necessary for engagement with this service.
The procedure charges fees for various scales of development proposals, as well as being able to offer some fee exemptions.
Please note that all non-householder development pre-application enquiries must follow the procedure in this document and must be submitted via the webform.
The use of the Pre-Application Enquiry service for householder development proposals is only advised if recommended by a planning officer. If you have not been advised by a planning officer to submit a Pre-Application Enquiry for a householder proposal, please contact the duty planning officer on 01224 053746 Mon - Fri between 10am and 4pm or email pi@aberdeencity.gov.uk first to discuss your development ideas.
| Type of Development | Development Thresholds | Fee (inc. of VAT) | Scope of Response |
Householder Development | Development ancillary or related to an existing residential use (i.e. an extension or alteration to an existing dwelling) | No fee | Written Evaluation with consultee input if required |
Signage / Advertisement Proposal |
| No fee | Written Evaluation with consultee input if required |
Local Development (1) |
| £250 | Written Evaluation with consultee input if required |
| Local Development (2) |
| £500 | Written Evaluation with consultee input (if required) |
| Local Development (3) |
| £1000 | Written Evaluation with consultee input and site visit (if required) |
Major / National Development |
| £3500 | Written Evaluation with consultee input, and site visit, meeting(s), and workshop (if required) |
Pre-Application advice relating to the following is exempt from fee:
In order for the Development Management Team to be able to continue to offer discretionary pre-application advice it is necessary to charge for this service. Where pre-application advice is sought in developing preliminary proposals or working towards any planning application, including Matters Specified in Condition (MSC) and Modification of Planning Condition (Section 42) applications, the pre-application procedure and fees scale in the table apply. Please be aware that the fees will be reviewed regularly (at least every 6 months) and amended if required to ensure they are proportionate to the costs of delivering the service. Fees can be paid via the webform.
It is preferable that you make any payment required by credit or debit card as part of the submission of this application form. If you opt not to make a payment at this stage we will contact you afterwards to arrange the payment and this may result in a delay in dealing with your request.
Please note that the system does not currently notify the planning service of the submission of a Pre-Application Enquiry if the number of attachments exceeds 35 Mb.
We are reconfiguring our webform to address this issue. In the meantime, please ensure that the total file size of any attachments is below 35Mb, otherwise your enquiry will not reach the planning service.