Re: Septic tanks: when do they need planning permission? - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)
Open group
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Started - July 2012
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Last activity - April
Re: Septic tanks: when do they need planning permission?
At the heart of this question is a proposed replacement septic tank in the grounds of house, which would be in a different location to the existing tank. There's no definitive statement one way or the other about this that I can find. I rang a Council about it (a very generalised enquiry - no specific circumstacnes were mentioned) and was told that 2 out of 3 of the officers there thought that a septic tank might need permission. So what's your experience/opinion? On the one hand, perhaps they should all need permission as an engineeing operation, which is not a pd right. On the other hand, is there a generous interpretation to be had of Class E of the householder pd rights?
Andrew There is no question that planning permission is required. I am at a loss to comprehend anyone thinking otherwise.
I started out thinking pp would be required in all instances, noting that many (most?) tanks get pp alongside the new house or barn conversion they will serve. I was thrown by the lack of certainty from the council I called about it for one thing. But there's also an absence of definitive guidance on the subject that doesn't help - it would be useful for the Portal to say something about it as part of its interactive guides. Most of the suppliers of septic tanks also manage to be quite definite about Building regs or EA requirements but, perhaps inevitably, vary wildly on the question of planning permission.
I agree it would be helpful to spell it out on the portal - perhaps you will broach the matter with them. An old circular I know, and which I'm sure you're aware of, but still present guidance and worth looking at as it has relevance to septic tanks not purely in conjunction with new development as featured in the title is: Circular 03/99: Planning requirement in respect of the Use of Non-Mains Sewerage incorporating Septic Tanks in New Development http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/planningandbuilding/pdf/147582.pdf
There is often confusion between cess pools and septic tanks. The allowance by Part 1 Class (e) of 'other pool'(s) might be considered to give cess pools PD in the curtilage of a dwelling. I concur with others that there seems to no allowance for the installation of a septic tank. The Environment Agency sequential approach to non mains drainage would, in any case, prefer the use of a package treatment plant over a septic tank or cess pool. Going off at a tangent the conditions on Class E state the capacity of the container should not exceed 3,500 litres. This would be smaller than allowed under current Building Regulations, for a cess pool, making it impracticle to use this allowance for a dwelling, However, the reference to 'container' may have been intended to refer to part (b) of class E which is specifically about oil containers. This seems to be another vague area of the regulations for Permitted Development where the DCLG have combined two old classes into one.