Understanding Planning Legislation: Permitted Development Rights in protected or sensitive environments

While the basic aim of permitted development rights is to exclude relatively minor development proposals from planning controls, the need to control any significant impact of even minor development in protected or sensitive environments means that the GDO provides for some permitted development rights to be withdrawn or limited in certain circumstances:

• in conservation areas, and certain other specified or designated areas such as National Parks, AONBs and sites of archaeological interest;
• by conditions, exclusions and limitations applying to specific rights within each Part of Schedule 1 of the GDO;
• through Articles in the GDO, including Article 4 and Article 6, which give the Department powers to remove permitted development rights, and Article 3 which removes permitted development rights for development where an Environmental Impact Assessment is required;
• in a few Parts of Schedule 1 of the GDO, by requiring prior approval or notification of some of the details of permitted development proposals to be provided and determined by the Planning Service.
  

Exceptionally, permitted development rights can be removed outside the GDO through conditions attached to a planning permission.