Empowering Homeowners Through Better Guidance: A New Model for Planning Support

As the planning system comes under increasing pressure from budget constraints, staffing shortages, and rising expectations, one group continues to dominate the caseload: homeowners. Yet too often, this group is overlooked when it comes to communication, engagement, and support.

At Building Control Communications, we believe that solving the planning system’s capacity problem starts by empowering the public — and that means rethinking how we communicate with homeowners.

Why Homeowners Matter in the Planning System

While major developments often attract the headlines, many planning applications submitted each year come from homeowners — extensions, loft conversions, outbuildings, dropped kerbs, boundary changes, and so on. These are not professional developers with a planning consultant on retainer. They are members of the public navigating a highly technical system, often for the first (and only) time.

Too often, the guidance available to them is:

• Written in policy-heavy language, not plain English.

• Buried within council websites that weren’t designed around the user journey of a resident.

• Generic, failing to reflect the specific rules or expectations of the local area.

• Incomplete, answering some questions but raising others.

This leads to a flood of phone calls and emails to planning departments, repeat applications, and poor-quality submissions that stretch already-limited resources even further.

The Hidden Cost of Confusion

In every planning team we speak to, the same themes emerge:

• Time is wasted on clarifying basic policy points — e.g. what counts as permitted development, how to measure height, or whether a garage conversion needs permission.

• Invalid applications are rising, requiring more back-and-forth with applicants.

• Officers spend time dealing with complaints, not all of which stem from the decision itself — many come from applicants who simply didn’t understand the process.

• General public trust in planning is falling, as people experience it as inconsistent or overly bureaucratic.

The truth is: the confusion isn’t the fault of the public. It’s a communication failure — and one that can be fixed.

Planning Teams Want to Improve Communication — But Can’t

Planning officers we speak to are overwhelmingly in favour of better homeowner engagement. But they face a real dilemma:

• There is neither the time nor budget to produce clear, well-designed, up-to-date guidance.

• Local government web platforms often don’t support modern digital content in the ways residents expect.

• There’s a fear of oversimplifying, of giving advice that could be misinterpreted or misused.

The result is that guidance stays vague, inaccessible, or out of date — not because planners don’t care, but because they don’t have the tools to do it differently.

That’s where we come in.

Our Model: High-Quality, Council-Branded Guides — at No Cost

We work in direct partnership with local authority planning teams to create professional homeowner guidance that’s:

• Co-branded with the council to ensure authority and trust.

• Written in plain English, based on real-world homeowner queries and local policies.

• Illustrated and designed professionally, making it easy to follow.

• Distributed in digital format — online, on the councils website and the planning portal, and through standard social channels.

• Updated regularly to reflect policy and legislation changes.

Importantly, we fully fund the production through carefully selected, relevant advertising — typically from local tradespeople and home improvement specialists. This means councils get a high-quality product at zero cost, while advertisers reach an engaged, local audience.

Councils retain full editorial control, and we never publish anything without full officer sign-off.

What Success Looks Like

Across the country, dozens of local authorities are already benefiting from this model. We’ve seen:

• Fewer invalid applications in areas where the guides are promoted well.

• Lower call volumes relating to basic application queries.

• Better engagement from residents, including pre-application advice and enforcement avoidance.

• Positive feedback from both homeowners and councillors, who value seeing the council communicating clearly and helpfully.

We regularly update guides in collaboration with each council, ensuring they remain current and aligned with emerging policies, design codes, and local plan changes.

A Modern Approach to Public Service Communication

This isn’t just about planning. It’s about public service communication in the digital age.

Residents expect clarity. They expect simple, professional information that helps them take the right steps. And when they don’t get it, trust in public institutions erodes — even when officers are doing their best behind the scenes.

We believe councils should have access to the kind of design and communication resources that residents experience in other parts of their lives. Planning teams should not have to choose between accuracy and accessibility. They can — and must — deliver both.

Our role is to support councils in making that possible, through a tried-and-tested partnership model that works.

Let’s Work Together

As national planning policy continues to evolve with more emphasis on community engagement, design codes, and accessible guidance, councils that lead in public communication will also lead in trust and delivery.

We’re proud to support local planning teams in providing the clarity that residents deserve. And we invite more councils to join us.

Whether your planning team is under pressure, your residents are struggling to engage, or your guidance needs a refresh, we’re here to help you deliver something better -without placing further strain on your resources.

Summary Benefits for Councils:

Challenge - Our Solution

Limited time to produce guidance - We write and design it for you

No budget for engagement materials - We fund it via advertising

Confusing or out-of-date content - We update it regularly

Overloaded planning inbox - Residents get the answers they need first time

Pressure to improve public engagement - Branded, trusted, plain English guidance

To find out more, don’t forget to speak to us at the National Planning Conference on the 9^th of October.

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