Planning application process

Use this guide to help you understand the planning application process, what you need to consider when preparing an application, and what happens after it has been submitted to us.

The planning application process can sometimes be complicated and difficult to understand. This guide is intended to help people unfamiliar with the process to understand what they need to consider when preparing an application and what happens after it has been submitted to us.

It sets out a simplified version of the different stages of the process. For those who are interested in finding out more about the decision-making process, the Planning Portal website is a helpful resource and provides further general advice on the planning process.

If you've submitted a Lambeth planning application recently or in the past, tell us about your experience using the system. Your feedback will be fed into our reducing invalid planning applications project to help us improve the system. Take our short survey.