Article 4 Directions

To help protect the character and appearance of some of the district’s conservation areas, East Suffolk Council, as a local planning authority, has increased planning controls through the application of Article 4 Directions. A list of conservation areas where these have been applied is below. These directions make further restrictions on permitted development rights to change residential (only) properties. Planning permission is consequently required to make any change of design or material to any part of the property facing what is called a ‘relevant location’ – that is, a public thoroughfare, defined as a highway, waterway or open space.

The types of changes controlled include replacing windows and doors; painting previously unpainted buildings or stripping paint from them; erection, alteration or demolition of part or all of a wall, fence, gate or other enclosure; or the construction of a porch. Also controlled is the enlargement, improvement or other alteration of a dwelling, any alteration to its roof, the provision of a building, enclosure, swimming pool, hard surface, etc., within the grounds, or 'curtilage', of the building.

Elevations of properties not visible from a relevant location (other than roofs or chimneys) are not affected, and these will enjoy the usual permitted development rights for a conservation area. Further, Article 4 Directions do not affect:

• repairs or maintenance
• alterations which took place before the Direction was in place

These Article 4 Directions do not apply to apartments or commercial properties.

Whilst some of the Article 4 Directions refer to the 1995 General Permitted Development Order which has been superseded by the 2015 Order, they can also be considered to have been consolidated by the 2015 Order. As such, those parts of the 1995 Order referred to in the Article 4 Directions are still relevant and give a sensible reason of why permitted development rights have been removed. The original reasons why the Article 4 Directions were made in the first place still exist and, therefore, they remain valid.

The East Suffolk Historic Environment Supplementary Planning Document contains useful information.

For more detailed maps of the conservation areas please use our Geographic Information System.