If you’re thinking of getting into property development, making significant structural alterations to your home or embarking on a ‘build your own home’ project, you’ll need to obtain planning permission before setting a single brick in place.

Whilst some projects may sail through to that sought-after ‘planning approved’ status, others will face a long, drawn-out and complicated process. This can be especially true with large-scale projects like new residential or commercial unit developments but even an extension to your house can sometimes take longer than you may think.

In this week’ blog, we’ve got a short guide to the steps involved in gaining planning permission and a few tips to follow along the way.

Mistakes can be made at any phase of a construction project. Some may be minor but others can have serious consequences, affecting costs, schedules and, of course, the health and safety of workers. When the stakes are this high, it’s important that any mistakes lead to lessons being learnt, but it’s even more important that they are avoided in the first place. With that in mind, here’s our short guide to avoiding some of the common pitfalls in construction; in other words what NOT to do!