Planning permission in Durham County
Durham County Council is the local planning authority for Durham County, a unitary authority in the North East. Below is what its official planning data shows, what it means for the most common projects, and how to get a verified report for your exact address.
Do you need planning permission in Durham County?
It depends on your exact address. Many householder projects are permitted development and need no application — but Durham County Council has 92 conservation areas, and inside those the permitted development route narrows or disappears. Every application is decided against national policy and Durham County Council’s adopted Local Plan. A report for your postcode tells you exactly which apply.
What Durham County has published
| Dataset · national planning data index | Published |
|---|---|
| Conservation areas | 92 |
| Article 4 direction areas (permitted development removed) | 0 |
| Tree preservation zones | 0 |
| Listed building outlines | 0 |
| Local Plan documents | 0 |
Counts are read from planning.data.gov.uk and refreshed daily. A zero or dash means the council has not yet published that dataset to the national index — not that the designation doesn’t exist on the ground. We show what we found and tell you what we didn’t. We never infer a restriction — or the absence of one — from missing data.
Planning permission for your project in Durham County
What the rules mean for the most common householder projects in Durham County — each grounded in the council’s designations and the official permitted-development limits.
Reading Durham County’s planning landscape
With 92 conservation areas on the official index, design and character carry real weight in Durham County decisions. Inside a conservation area the bar for external alterations rises, and some permitted development rights narrow — which side of a boundary your property sits on can change your project’s planning route entirely. Browse Durham County’s conservation areas →
Every application in Durham County is decided against national policy (the NPPF) and Durham County Council’s adopted Local Plan. A Planning Policy report quotes the specific policies that apply to your project — verbatim, verified, and linked to the official documents.
Get a planning report for your Durham County address
A Planning Policy report applies the official rules to your exact property: the designations on your address, the policies that bear on your project — quoted verbatim — and what decided applications nearby show. Generated in minutes.