General Guidance
The site boundary needs to be indicated in red on the site location plan that is submitted with a planning application.
As a general rule, the site boundary should be the same as the property boundary. This will be true for the vast majority of planning applications and the red boundary will correspond to the curtilage of the property. For example, in the case of an application to build an extension to a semi-detached house, the boundary is not an outline of the proposed extension or even of the house itself, but should encompass all of the land associated with the dwelling. This includes all gardens, yards and outbuildings associated with the property. The red line should follow the party wall and garden fence which separates the land from adjacent properties.
In most cases, the boundary will correspond to various lines on the map base, so drawing the boundary is simply a case of tracing over these lines, once the appropriate lines are identified. Sometimes however, parts of the boundary do not correspond to any lines on the map base (e.g. open plan front gardens). If so, then it will be necessary to estimate visually where the boundary should lie. Please try to be as precise as possible when drawing these lines.
If in doubt about the position of any parts of a property boundary, it may be necessary to consult the deeds of the property. In most cases however the boundary should be fairly obvious. At the very least, the site boundary should encompass the whole of the proposed development area.
Exceptions
There are some instances where the red boundary should differ from the boundary of the property and these are described here as follows:
- Developments taking place on farmland are a particular exception. The boundary of the entire farm is usually not particularly relevant. If the main farmhouse is the subject of the application, then the logical boundary to use is the boundary of the farmyard. If the farmhouse is enclosed separately away from other farm buildings, then that enclosure should be the boundary. Similarly, other enclosed areas within the farm provide convenient boundaries in applications for agricultural developments. In the case of a piece of farmland or paddock being set aside for new dwellings or the conversion of agricultural buildings to dwellings, the site boundary is taken to be whatever the boundary of the dwellings will become after they are constructed.
- If a field or paddock is attached to a residential property, it is normally excluded unless the application affects it.
- For schools, playing fields should normally be excluded unless they are affected by the application. As with farms, an enclosed group of buildings often provides an obvious boundary. For large schools, within which many extensions and alterations occur over the years, if only a small section or wing of a large building is affected, then the red outline should only include the block or wing affected by the development.
- Similarly, for large commercial complexes on which many small developments are likely to take place over the years, it will be more useful to mark the area affected by the development rather than the entire complex.
- In the case of an application for the erection of a telecommunications mast, or any other development which has no functional relationship with the property on which it lies, the red boundary should mark out the new development only.
- If the entire development is to take place on a part of the site which is to be split off with the intention of it becoming a separate property, then the red boundary should define the curtilage of the proposed new property rather than that of the original property (unless the original property is also affected by the proposal).
- If the application involves two or more adjacent properties being merged into one, then the boundary should encompass the whole of the two properties.
- New proposed access paths that lie outside of the property boundary should be included as part of the application site (assuming these are included as part of the same application).
- Any proposed associated works beyond the property but below ground level, such as utility supply cables and pipes, are normally excluded if the ground surface is intended to be restored after works are completed.
- In applications for Listed Building Consent, particularly for a large building or complex, often the boundary of the building itself will be more appropriate than that of the entire property, unless the boundary walls are also listed or the building has been extended or the proposal involves an extension. However, for any small self-contained property, the entire property boundary is more relevant.