New builds

Confirm exactly what has been granted: full permission for a specific design, or outline permission where scale and appearance still need approving through a reserved matters application. The two require very different amounts of further work before a start on site is lawful.

Read every condition on the decision notice before mobilising. Pre-commencement conditions — commonly covering surface water drainage strategy, contamination, ecology mitigation, or access details — must be formally discharged before any site work begins, including site clearance in some cases. Discharging a condition can take weeks, and starting work before it is discharged can put the whole permission at risk.

Vehicle access — visibility splays, gradient, and whether an existing access needs widening or a new one needs forming — is frequently a condition in its own right, and is also a genuine construction constraint for delivery lorries and concrete wagons on rural Cumbrian lanes.

Finished floor levels, how they relate to existing ground levels and neighbouring properties, and any cut-and-fill needed to make the design work are usually set out in the approved drawings and should be checked on the ground, not just on paper, before excavation starts.

Establish early whether mains foul drainage is available at or near the boundary, or whether a package treatment plant or septic tank is required — a materially different groundworks package, and one that may itself need Environment Agency permitting.

Surface water strategy depends on ground conditions: a soakaway strategy needs a percolation test to confirm it will actually work in the ground present on site, and many rural sites end up using attenuation and a controlled discharge instead.

Water, electricity and telecoms connections all have their own lead times, particularly where the plot is some distance from existing mains — these should be applied for well ahead of the intended start date.

Ecology surveys (bats, nesting birds, protected species, and habitat) are commonly required either before permission is granted or as a condition of it, and their findings can affect programme — some surveys are seasonal and can only be carried out at certain times of year.

Trees subject to a Tree Preservation Order, or within a Conservation Area, need checking before any felling, pruning or excavation near their root protection area. A structural or ground investigation may also be needed to confirm bearing capacity and inform foundation design, especially on sloping or previously undeveloped Cumbrian sites.

Building Regulations approval runs alongside the build, covering foundation design, structure, insulation, ventilation, fire safety, drainage and more. A structural engineer's foundation design, based on an actual ground investigation rather than assumption, is normal for new dwellings and is usually required by Building Control before foundation work is signed off.

A realistic pre-start checklist for a new build plot.

Self and custom-build projects sometimes access reliefs not available to standard development, including potential exemption or relief from the Community Infrastructure Levy where the correct forms and evidence are submitted to the authority at the right stages — this is time-critical and must be arranged before, not after, work starts, or the relief can be lost entirely.

Section 106 agreements, where attached to a consent, impose their own obligations — sometimes affordable housing contributions, sometimes financial contributions to local infrastructure — separate from planning conditions, and these should be read in full alongside the decision notice.

A proper ground investigation — typically trial pits or boreholes, sometimes supplemented by a percolation test for drainage — gives the structural engineer real data instead of an assumption, and on Cumbrian plots this is rarely a formality. Sloping sites, historic mine workings in parts of the county, variable glacial till, and high water tables near becks and rivers can all change foundation type and depth substantially from what a generic design might assume.

Where a site investigation reveals contamination, unstable ground, or an unexpected watercourse or culvert crossing the plot, redesign of the foundation and drainage strategy is common, and it is far cheaper to discover this before groundworks start than mid-excavation.

Where a consent covers several plots, the order in which roads, drainage, and services are installed usually needs agreeing with the authority as part of the conditions, and often needs a Section 38 agreement (for adoption of new roads) or a Section 104 agreement (for adoption of new sewers) with the relevant authority or water company before those assets can be handed over for long-term maintenance.

Phasing also affects site access during construction — shared haul roads, temporary drainage, and the sequencing of plots so that finished homes are not exposed to ongoing construction traffic and mud, are all practical planning matters that need resolving on paper before the first plot breaks ground.

New dwellings are subject to current Building Regulations energy efficiency and, in some areas, water efficiency standards that go beyond older housing stock requirements, and some Local Plans set additional policy requirements — for example around renewable energy provision, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, or higher water efficiency targets — on top of the national minimum. These should be checked against the specific planning permission and current Building Regulations edition rather than assumed from a previous project.

Where a condition requires a sustainability or energy statement to be discharged before occupation, evidence of compliance (air tightness testing, SAP calculations, as-built details) is normally needed at completion, not just at design stage — this affects programme for the final weeks of the build.

Approved drawings usually specify external materials — brick, stone, render, roofing — and these can be tied to planning conditions on some sites, particularly in sensitive locations. Confirming the exact specification, and whether any materials are subject to sample approval before use, avoids ordering the wrong product or discovering a condition after work has started.

A groundworks contractor pricing a new build accurately needs more than a floor plan: a topographic survey showing real levels, a ground investigation report, the structural engineer's foundation design, the drainage strategy, and photographs or a description of the access route all remove specific assumptions from the price. Sites priced from drawings alone, without ground data, generally carry more risk of the quote moving once excavation starts.

Once conditions are discharged and the design is fixed, the groundworks phase of a new build typically follows a similar order.

SHS is the contractor, not the planning authority. What SHS can do is look at your plot from a build point of view — access, ground conditions, levels, drainage, foundations and buildability — and tell you plainly what the construction side is likely to involve.

If drawings already exist, send them. If they do not, a site visit and a conversation usually establishes what information you need to gather next and who you need it from.