Section 20 Consultation and Major Works in Plymouth
3 published tribunal decisions from in and around Plymouth, with what each one actually decided. The figures Plymouth City Council publishes, rather than a national average.
- Local authority
- Plymouth City Council
- Service
- Section 20 consultation
- County
- Devon
- Published decisions
- 3 tribunal decisions
Section 20 Cases Decided in and Around Plymouth
| Development | Case | What the tribunal decided, and why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Evolution Cove, Durnford Street, Stonehouse | HAV/00HG/LDC/2024/0638 24 December 2024 | Dispensation granted for replacing combustible cladding on a six-storey block of 63 flats, estimated at 3.8 million pounds, because the Cladding Safety Scheme tender requirements were incompatible with statutory consultation. Two leaseholders objected about cost, which is not the question on dispensation: prejudice is. |
| 125 King Street | HAV/00HG/LDC/2025/0737 24 April 2026 | The landlord did consult, but an administrative error addressed the notices to 123 King Street instead of 125. One wrong digit invalidated the consultation and forced an application to the tribunal. Audit your address data before a notice of intention goes out. |
| Discovery Wharf, 15 North Quay | CHI/00HG/LDC/2022/0057 6 July 2022 | An RTM company can apply for dispensation in its own right. Here it needed to appoint a consultant to design and tender cladding works before the Building Safety Fund window opened, and a full consultation would have missed it. All four responding lessees agreed and it was decided on the papers. |
Building Control in Plymouth
Plymouth publishes its scaffolding and hoarding fees openly, and the pricing model matters more than the number: 99 pounds per 28 day period, so a six month external works programme costs roughly 693 pounds in licence fees alone. An application with less than three working days' notice costs 198 pounds, an emergency permit 198, and defective scaffolding is charged at 65 pounds a day. The scaffolding company needs chapter 8 accreditation and five million pounds of public liability cover. Because Plymouth is a unitary authority, that licence, the skip permit, the road closure, the planning consent, the building control approval and the search all come from the same council. In Exeter the highway items go to Devon County Council on a separate timetable.
Consent for External Works in Plymouth
Plymouth's adopted supplementary planning document contains a render rule written specifically for this city, because render here has weathered badly. Within the Plymouth policy area render is considered inappropriate on tall buildings and on buildings in exposed locations or next to busy roads, and will normally be resisted. On low to medium rise buildings it is supported only as a high quality silicone system with water and dirt repellence, and a textured finish is to be avoided because it holds dirt. On roofs the same document favours a blue grey slate and, citing BS 5534, prefers fully metamorphosed slates over lesser imports and nail fixing over clips. That is a specification a contractor can be held to.
What We Do About Section 20 Consultation in Plymouth
We manage this rather than advise on it. In Plymouth that means working from the 3 decisions above and from what Plymouth City Council actually publishes, not from a national template:
- Check the demand and the specification against how dispensation has been argued here, so an application is a considered step rather than a rescue.
- Price the work against Plymouth City Council's own published schedule at the point the budget is set.
- Check the appraisal for this area before materials are chosen, since that is where the restriction usually sits.
That work sits inside a fixed annual management fee. We take no commission on contractor work, so there is no incentive on our side for the job to get bigger.
How This Works, in General
The law here is the same in Plymouth as it is anywhere in England, and it is set out in full on our major-works-section-20 page rather than repeated on this one. What changes locally is above: the authority, the figures, and what the tribunal has actually done with cases nearby.
Other Services in Plymouth
Everything else we do in the area is on the Plymouth page, and the full matrix is at services by area.