A 2013 plan, still deciding.
The plan adopted in December 2013 decides every application. Its replacement was withdrawn in 2024, and the new one is only at issues and options.
Read moreRIBA Chartered · West Midlands
Architects in Solihull.
Green Belt sites, barn conversions and infill. Find out what yours will take.
Selected work in Solihull
Site appraisal · Balsall Common
Frog Lane, Balsall Common
An outline maximum of 110 homes, resolved to a tested 95 in the client's own house types.
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Barn conversion · Earlswood
High Chimneys Farm
Four bedrooms around a top-lit courtyard, granted under Class Q.
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Class Q · Earlswood
Green Gate Barns
Two homes inside a redundant steel barn. Prior approval granted, and built.
View projectPlanning in Solihull · 01
Know what the council will ask for.
Solihull decides on a plan adopted in 2013, after its replacement was withdrawn from examination and a new one began. Two thirds of the borough is Green Belt. Six things shape most schemes here.
Two years where five are asked for.
Solihull measured 2.13 years of housing land supply against the five years national policy asks for, and called the shortfall substantial.
Read moreGrey Belt is not a green light.
Two thirds of the borough is Green Belt. In the council's own words, development is not automatic on Grey Belt land.
Read moreForty per cent, from eleven homes up.
Policy P4 asks for 40 per cent affordable housing from eleven dwellings, or over 1,000 square metres. Reusing a building can reduce it.
Read moreA third of the plot, and no more.
Solihull has its own backland guidance, and it is specific: plot coverage, the garden left behind, and how far a bin can be dragged.
Read moreRural land is charged double.
Community Infrastructure Levy is charged by the square metre, and the 2026 rural residential rate is exactly twice the mature-suburbs one.
Read moreSolihull Metropolitan Borough Council policy, correct at August 2026. The new local plan and the levy schedule both move, so we re-check them at the point of application.
The proof
Two homes inside a redundant barn.
Green Gate Barns, Earlswood
A redundant steel-framed agricultural barn in open countryside, made into two houses inside the existing shell. Prior approval granted in forty-three days, and built.
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Every application we make is a matter of public record on a council planning register. Ours reach more than 100 planning authorities across the UK. The practice has been working since 1970.
Who we work with · 02
Start from what you are building.
Developers, homeowners and commercial clients all need the same first answer: what will this site take? The route to it changes with the project.
For developers
Apartments, conversions and Green Belt edge sites, from residential architects who design schemes that are viable and buildable, with the planning case built in from the first sketch.
Residential developmentFor homeowners
Extensions, remodels and new houses, including backland plots and barn conversions out in the Green Belt villages, designed around how you live.
Private homesCommercial and mixed-use
Shops, offices, community buildings and mixed-use conversions, from commercial architects who argue the case with the evidence Solihull expects to see.
Commercial workWhy Rickett · 03
Start a conversation Why clients come back.
Work with a team that has already built here.
Two homes finished inside a redundant barn at Earlswood. A masterplan and design code for a landowner on the edge of Shirley. Yours would not be our first Solihull Green Belt argument, or our first buried constraint.
Get to a decision sooner.
Straight to a complete, valid submission. The delays that cost a programme are the avoidable ones, not the statutory clock.
A lead architect, start to finish.
A lead architect is involved from the first conversation to the last drawing. The team that starts your scheme stays with it, so nothing is passed down a chain.
Know the site before you commit to it.
Appraised properly, in the open, by someone who knows what a council needs to see and when the right answer is to push back.
Green Belt TPOTurn a redundant barn into a home.
Two thirds of Solihull is Green Belt, where Class Q prior approval is often the only route to a new house. It runs on a fifty-six day clock, so the evidence has to be complete on the day it goes in.
prior approval Class Q tests Green Belt open countrysideSpend once the risk is down, not before.
Costs staged behind certainty. Every commitment sits behind the decision that justifies it, so nothing is spent on a scheme that has not earned it.
appraisal consent your spendLet someone else hold the list.
From first appraisal to final discharge, every survey, report and condition is tracked for you. You are not the one chasing an ecologist in week nine.
Ecology surveyReport inCondition 7tracked to dischargeWorking on a site in Solihull?
Tell us about it and a Senior Architect will give you an initial appraisal and guide you as to what to do next.
Start a conversationCommon questions · 04
Questions about building in Solihull.
Do you work on projects in Solihull?
Yes. Earlswood, Shirley and Balsall Common are all places we have worked, from Green Belt barn conversions, one of them built, to masterplanning and a design code on the edge of Shirley. Our applications sit on the registers of more than 100 planning authorities across the UK, so you get people who know this borough backed by a national record.
Is Solihull Council difficult to get planning permission from?
Protective rather than difficult. Two thirds of the borough is Green Belt, the council publishes its own detailed guidance on backland development, and it defends suburban character seriously. What it rewards is a scheme that arrives complete and evidenced, with the constraints answered rather than hoped away.
Can I build on Green Belt land in Solihull?
Sometimes, and the route matters more than the ambition. Green Belt land is still protected, and the newer Grey Belt category does not make development automatic. The case is built by establishing the site's status on its own evidence, then satisfying the planning balance on openness, character, highways and infrastructure. A housing land supply of 2.13 years helps that balance, but it does not settle it.
Can I convert a barn into a house in Solihull?
Often, yes, through Class Q prior approval, which is the usual route to a new home in the Green Belt. It is a narrower test than a planning application and it runs on a fifty-six day clock, so the structural evidence, the access and the drawings all have to be complete when it goes in. We took a redundant steel-framed barn at Earlswood to prior approval in forty-three days, and it has been built.
How much affordable housing does Solihull Council want?
Forty per cent, on residential sites of eleven units or more, or where the combined gross floorspace is over 1,000 square metres. Below that threshold no contribution is sought. Where an existing building is being reused or demolished, the council applies a published vacant building credit that reduces the requirement in proportion to the floorspace already on the site.
Can I build a house in my back garden in Solihull?
It is possible, and the council's backland guidance is specific about what it will accept. A new building should not normally cover more than a third of its plot, its useable garden should at least match its own footprint, the garden left behind should be at least eleven metres long, and bins should not be dragged more than thirty metres. Access design defeats more of these schemes than principle does.
Does Solihull Council charge Community Infrastructure Levy?
It does, by the square metre of new floorspace, and the rate depends on where the site sits. On the 2026 figures, residential development in the rural area is charged at exactly twice the mature-suburbs rate. The year that counts is the year permission is granted, not the year you apply, so the levy needs to be in the appraisal before a price is agreed.
