An outline settles the principle.

What it leaves open, and the two clocks that follow.

Reviewed August 2026

The short answer

An outline application settles the principle of development: the use, the amount, and access if you include it. Everything else is reserved for a second application. Three years to make that application, two years from the last approval to begin. Miss either and it lapses.

In practice · Wellingborough

A masterplan parcel, taken to consent

The clearest way to explain reserved matters is to watch one parcel go through them.

The order of work

01Read the outlineWhat the permission had already fixed, and what it had not.

02Read the codeThe adopted design code that binds this parcel.

03Test the capacityLayout, mix and yield worked up against both.

04Reserved mattersSubmitted at thirty-seven homes, approved at forty.

Land parcel R4B at Glenvale Park, on the northern edge of Wellingborough: two and a half acres inside a sustainable urban extension whose outline permission and design code were already in place, neither of them ours. The client was a national housebuilder. The principle of housing here had been settled years earlier. What had not been settled was what would actually stand on this hectare of it.

The job

Site: A 2.47 acre parcel inside a consented urban extension at Wellingborough
Role: Architect and agent for the reserved matters only
Consent: Borough Council of Wellingborough ref WP/17/00525/REM, approved June 2020
Outcome: Forty homes, built and occupied

The outline had fixed the principle, the estate-wide access strategy and the broad parameters for the whole extension. It had not fixed the layout of this parcel, the house types, the mix or the number. That is the work a reserved matters application does, and inside an adopted design code it is done against a written rulebook rather than a blank sheet.

The submission went in during August 2017 at thirty-seven homes. What followed was two years of design surgeries with the council's urban designers and the highway authority, and a running negotiation with the parcels either side, whose boundaries were still moving. The scheme came back in January 2020 at forty: thirty-six open market and four affordable, sixteen house types across roughly 3,486 square metres, forty dwellings to the hectare.

It was approved in June 2020, determined remotely while the country was in lockdown. The conditions were discharged the following January.

Three more homes on the same hectare is not a rounding error. At that density it is the difference between a mews terrace working and not working, and it came out of layout and typology rather than out of any argument about the principle. None of it touched the outline permission, because none of it was a matter the outline had settled.

That is worth knowing about an urban extension generally. The outline is one permission covering thousands of homes, and the places inside it are drawn, consented and sold parcel by parcel, each one a separate application against the same code. The parcel here is built and marketed under a name of its own.

The proof

Four consents, outline and reserved matters.

Reserved matters · approved

Glenvale Park, R4B

A one hectare parcel inside a consented urban extension at Wellingborough. The principle, the estate-wide access strategy and the design code were all fixed before the job started. The reserved matters application settled everything else, and came back approved at forty homes rather than the thirty-seven first drawn.

Borough Council of Wellingborough ref WP/17/00525/REM · approved June 2020

Outline, then reserved matters

Kings Heath, Birmingham

A back-land plot behind a suburban street, taken through both stages in turn: outline permission for three single-storey houses, then a separate application settling all five reserved matters on the same land. Two applications, one site, and the second one comfortably inside the three-year limit.

Birmingham City Council refs 2012/06050/PA and 2013/01819/PA · outline granted 2012, reserved matters 2013

Reserved matters · approved

Tennant Street, Birmingham

A city-centre car park that already carried an outline permission for a residential building of up to six storeys. Appearance, landscaping, layout and scale were the matters left reserved on it, and those four were the whole of this application. The principle was never in play.

Birmingham City Council ref 2017/01595/PA · reserved matters granted 2017

Outline · one dwelling

Wellesbourne, Warwickshire

Outline is not only for large sites. On a single plot in a Warwickshire village, outline consent was granted for one dwelling with access and landscaping settled up front and every other matter reserved. The applicant chooses which of the five to hold back, and nothing says it has to be all of them.

Stratford-on-Avon District Council ref 20/00361/OUT · outline granted 2020

Every planning application we make in our own name is a matter of public record on a council register, and ours reach more than 100 planning authorities across the UK.

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01 · Where you stand

First, decide which application you need

Outline is not a lighter version of a full application. It asks a different question. An outline application seeks a decision on the general principles of how a site can be developed and nothing beyond that, and it is granted subject to a condition requiring the later approval of one or more reserved matters.

It earns its keep where the principle is genuinely in doubt, or where the principle is the thing being sold. A landowner testing whether a field will carry housing, a promoter taking a site to market, a buyer who wants the risk priced before exchange: all three want the principle established without paying for a scheme that may never be built.

It is the wrong choice where the principle is not the problem. On an infill plot in a village with houses either side of it, the argument will be about layout, scale and overlooking, and those are precisely the matters an outline defers. Two applications, two fees and two determination periods buy nothing there.

There is a hard limit worth knowing at the outset. Outline planning permission is defined as a permission for the erection of a building, so a proposal that is only a change of use, with no building work in it, cannot be made in outline at all.

The council also holds a veto on the split. Where the authority takes the view that an application ought not to be considered separately from all or any of the reserved matters, it has one month from receiving the application to say so and to specify the further details it requires. On a sensitive site that notice arrives more often than people expect, and it turns an outline into a full application in everything but name.

02 · The five matters

What the five matters cover

Five matters may be reserved, and the applicant chooses which. Each has a statutory definition, and each has a place where it comes apart.

Matter 01

Access

The accessibility to and within the site, for vehicles, cycles and pedestrians, in terms of the positioning and treatment of access and circulation routes. It is the matter most often dealt with at outline rather than reserved, because a highways objection defeats a principle and not merely a detail.

Where it fails: even with access reserved, the application must still state where the access points will be.

Matter 02

Appearance

The aspects of a building or place within the development which determine the visual impression it makes. Materials, elevations, fenestration and detail all sit here. On a parcel governed by a design code this is where the code bites hardest, and where most of the negotiation happens.

Where it fails: it is judged against the surroundings, and on a new extension the surroundings may not be built yet.

Matter 03

Landscaping

The treatment of land other than buildings, for the purpose of enhancing or protecting the amenities of the site and the area. Planting, boundaries, surfaces and open space. Biodiversity and surface water both land at this stage whether or not anyone allowed for them earlier.

Where it fails: it is drawn last and costed never, and it is the matter that takes area off the plots.

Matter 04

Layout

The way in which buildings, routes and open spaces within the development are provided, situated and orientated in relation to each other. Layout is where the number of homes is really decided, because once the streets, plots and frontages are set the rest is arithmetic.

Where it fails: this is where density is lost, and it is lost quietly, a plot at a time.

Matter 05

Scale

The height, width and length of each building proposed within the development, in relation to its surroundings. Note the wording: each building. Scale is settled unit by unit rather than as one figure for the site, which is why a storey height agreed in principle can still be argued plot by plot.

Where it fails: there is no single number to defend, so the argument runs the length of the scheme.

03 · The two clocks

The two clocks on an outline

An outline permission runs on two deadlines, and statute sets the default rather than the council. An application for approval of reserved matters must be made within three years of the grant of the outline permission. Development must then begin within two years of the final approval of the last reserved matter to be approved.

Where the authority does not write those conditions in, the permission is deemed to carry them anyway. The authority may substitute other periods, longer or shorter, and may set different periods for different parts of the development, which is how a phased scheme is normally handled.

The three-year deadline is the unforgiving one. Once it has expired, no application for approval of reserved matters may be submitted at all. An outline permission that reaches its third birthday with nothing lodged has simply run out, and the principle has to be established again from the beginning, against whatever the development plan says by then.

For a landowner or a promoter the first clock is the one that matters, because it is the one a buyer inherits along with the land. An outline granted two years ago has a year of its reserved matters window left, and a scheme that takes nine months to draw and validate is cutting it fine rather than comfortably inside it.

The second clock is the one a funder asks about. It runs from the final approval of the last matter to be approved, so on a scheme where layout is settled early and appearance late, the two years start with the late one. The order in which matters are reserved and discharged is therefore a programming decision, not an administrative one, and it is worth taking deliberately at the outline stage rather than discovering it afterwards.

Common questions

Outline permission, answered

Is permission in principle the same as outline permission?

No. Permission in principle settles only location, land use and the amount of development, and on the application route it is closed to major schemes; householder work is closed to it either way.

An outline application can settle a great deal more. It fixes the principle and whichever of the five matters you choose not to reserve, it is granted subject to conditions, and it can be accompanied by a section 106 agreement. A permission in principle does none of that: no conditions attach to it and no planning obligations can be secured at that stage, so everything a council would ordinarily control at the principle stage waits for technical details consent instead. The size limit settles the rest. The application route is closed to major development, which for housing starts at ten homes, so on most developer sites an outline application remains the route. The second route, through part 2 of a brownfield land register, is not closed to major development, and it is covered in the guide to brownfield development.

Does an outline permission fix how many homes can be built?

Usually yes. Information about the proposed use and the amount of development for each use has to be given with an outline application, so the number is part of what is permitted.

The description of development is what binds. Where it says up to a stated number, that number is a ceiling and the reserved matters may land below it. Where it states a fixed number, the reserved matters have to deliver it. What the detailed stage can still do is settle how those homes sit on the ground, and in practice that moves the achievable figure more than any argument about the headline. A parcel first drawn at thirty-seven can come back approved at forty on layout alone. Changing the number stated on the outline itself is a different application again, and a different risk.

Can reserved matters be submitted in stages?

Yes. They may be applied for all at once or individually, and different matters can be settled at different times.

There is a second freedom alongside it. Even after details relating to a particular reserved matter have been approved, one or more fresh applications may be made for approval of alternative details in relation to the same matter, so a layout approved in year one can be replaced by a better one in year two without disturbing the outline permission. Both freedoms stop at the same point: once the time limit for reserved matters applications has expired, no application for such an approval may be submitted, whether it would have been the first or the fifth.

Can the outline permission itself be changed?

Its deadlines cannot be extended by a section 73 application. Most other conditions on it can be revisited.

Section 73 grants a fresh permission on varied conditions and is the usual route to reopening a parameter range, a restrictive condition or a phasing requirement on an outline. Section 96A deals with non-material changes and leaves the original permission standing. Neither reaches the time limits, and the guidance is explicit that permission cannot be granted under section 73 to extend the time within which development must be started or an application for approval of reserved matters must be made. Both routes, and when each one applies, are set out in the guide to changing a planning permission.

Is an illustrative masterplan binding?

It depends on how it was submitted. Details of a reserved matter sent in with an outline application are treated as part of the application unless they are marked for illustrative purposes only.

Where they carry no such marking the authority must treat them as part of the development applied for, and it cannot then reserve that matter by condition for later approval. So an indicative layout offered to help a committee picture the scheme can quietly become the approved layout. The mistake runs the other way just as often, with a masterplan clearly labelled illustrative read by a buyer or a funder as though it were consented. Neither the plan nor the decision notice says which of the two it is. Only the application documents do, and reading them is the first job on any site bought with an outline already on it.

Do conditions on the outline still apply at reserved matters?

Yes. Conditions imposed on the outline run with it, and the reserved matters application has to be capable of complying with every one of them.

This is the part most often missed by someone buying a site on the strength of an outline. A condition capping heights, fixing an access point, requiring a phasing plan, tying the affordable proportion or holding development inside a parameter range is not reopened at the detailed stage. It is the frame the detail has to fit inside. Where the scheme a buyer wants will not fit, the answer is not a cleverer reserved matters application but a section 73 application on the outline, which is a separate consent carrying its own risk. Reading the conditions on an outline is worth more than reading the drawings that came with it.

Can a site with outline permission be sold?

Yes. A planning permission runs with the land rather than with the applicant, so an outline permission passes to whoever buys the site.

Everything attached to it passes too: the conditions, any section 106 obligations, and both statutory clocks, already part run. A buyer inheriting an outline granted twenty months ago has sixteen months left to get a reserved matters application in, and that is a fact about the asset rather than about the buyer. It is why the date of grant deserves as much attention as the description of development. What an outline is worth is a question for a valuer and a land agent rather than an architect; the guide to whether your land could be developed covers the ground around it.

Written by

Rickett Architects

A RIBA Chartered practice, working since 1970, with more than 2,500 projects behind it. Our senior architects take projects from first survey through planning to completion, for private clients, developers and landowners across the Midlands and well beyond it.