Application management — Jersey only

Planning agent in Jersey

Q: What does a planning agent actually do?

A planning agent prepares and runs your application through the States on your behalf: assessing the site against Island Plan policy, producing the drawings and supporting documents, submitting via the Planning and Building Portal, then handling the case officer's queries, any neighbour representations, and amendments up to the decision.

Q: Do I need a planning agent, or can I apply myself?

You can apply yourself, and for very simple work people do. An agent earns their fee when the site has a constraint — a listing, a conservation area, a flood zone, a boundary issue, a neighbour likely to object — or when a refusal would cost you a building season.

Q: What is your planning success rate?

Across roughly 100 applications a year, 85% of our planning applications are approved and 100% of our building bye-law applications are approved.

Q: My application was refused. What now?

There are three routes: amend and resubmit to address the reason for refusal, appeal the decision, or accept it. Which is right depends entirely on the wording of the refusal notice. Appeals carry strict time limits, so get the notice looked at quickly rather than waiting.

Q: Can you take over an application someone else started?

Yes. We regularly pick up stalled applications, including ones already refused. We will read the file and tell you honestly whether it is recoverable before you spend anything further.

Q: Do you handle the building bye-law application too?

Yes, and this is where most Jersey projects come unstuck. Planning permission alone does not let you build. The bye-law application is separate, assessed against different standards, and needs a different drawing set. We run both.

We run the application, deal with the case officer, and answer the objections. The man who owns this practice spent his early career assessing these applications from inside the Jersey Planning Department.

100

applications a year

85%

planning success rate

100%

bye-law success rate

Why applications get refused in Jersey

Very few refusals are about taste. They are about a policy test the application failed to answer — overlooking and loss of privacy, dominance over a neighbouring property, harm to the setting of a listed building, development outside the built-up area, or a drainage or flood constraint that was never addressed.

The case officer has to apply those tests whether or not your drawings acknowledge them. An application built around them from the start is a different document to one that hopes they will not come up.

The consents we run

Planning permission

Whether the development is acceptable in principle.

Governed by: Planning and Building (Jersey) Law 2002 and the Island Plan

Building bye-law approval

Whether the construction meets the technical standards.

Governed by: Building Bye-Laws (Jersey) 2007

Listed building consent

Whether works to a listed building or place are acceptable.

Governed by: Historic Environment provisions of the 2002 Law

Where we take over

The application types that most often need an agent rather than a DIY submission.

Specialist applicationsListed buildings, conservation areas, change of use, appeals, party wall.Supporting reportsFlood risk, heritage statements, fire surveys, energy assessments.Building bye-law applicationsThe second consent most people forget about.Structural engineeringCalculations submitted with the bye-law application.

Already been refused?

Bring us the refusal notice. The reasons for refusal are numbered and specific, and they tell you whether the scheme is dead or merely badly presented. Sometimes the fix is a redesign. Sometimes it is the same scheme with the evidence the officer was obliged to see. Sometimes it is an appeal.

Planning appeals in Jersey →

Frequently Asked Questions

What does a planning agent actually do?

Do I need a planning agent, or can I apply myself?

What is your planning success rate?

My application was refused. What now?

Can you take over an application someone else started?

Do you handle the building bye-law application too?