Planning work under Wiltshire Council
Wiltshire Council is the local planning authority for Salisbury, Trowbridge, Chippenham, Warminster, Amesbury, Devizes, Marlborough, Corsham, Westbury, Melksham and the villages between. It is a unitary authority: there is no district council sitting underneath. Swindon Borough Council is a separate unitary. A small number of addresses on the county’s southern edge fall inside the New Forest National Park instead. We check that from the site address, not from the postcode town.
We prepare the forms, planning statement and surveys as needed, lodge through the Planning Portal, and deal with the Wiltshire Council case officer. Core Strategy / Local Plan policies, made neighbourhood plans, and the Wiltshire Design Guide are cited where they will actually decide the case.
What is distinctive here is the mix of market-town intensification, village settlement-boundary fights, and nationally designated landscape. Cranborne Chase and the North Wessex Downs National Landscapes (AONBs), the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site, Salisbury’s historic core, and River Avon nutrient neutrality regularly appear on ordinary domestic and small housing jobs. Green Belt is limited; countryside policy and heritage do more of the work.
We act from Bournemouth across south and west Wiltshire as a matter of routine, and further north where the case is right. Neighbouring LPAs we also cover include Dorset Council, Somerset Council and New Forest District Council.
Swindon Borough Council
Swindon Borough Council is a unitary local planning authority in its own right, not a department of Wiltshire Council. It covers Swindon, Highworth, Wroughton, Stratton St Margaret and Wanborough. Indicative postcode areas are SN1–6 and SN25–26. An address in the borough is lodged with Swindon, even when the wider county conversation is about Wiltshire Council. We are not the council, and the fee is fixed in writing before any work starts.
What usually decides Wiltshire cases
- Wiltshire Council local plan and neighbourhood plan policies
- Settlement boundaries versus open countryside
- Cranborne Chase and North Wessex Downs landscape settings
- Heritage, conservation areas and the World Heritage Site buffer where relevant
- River Avon nutrient neutrality and flood risk
- Householder design, amenity and parking in the towns
Services we run in this authority
- Householder applications for extensions, lofts, outbuildings and annexes
- Full applications for new dwellings and conversions
- Change of use and lawful development certificates
- Prior approval, including larger home extensions and rural conversions where the GPDO applies
- Appeals, including enforcement and non-determination
Householder applications from £500. Small full applications from £1,000. Written representations appeals £500 to £1,000. Council fees are separate. Every quote is confirmed in writing before work starts.