Pre-Planning Enquiries and Planning

Our team is here to support our developer community and Local Planning Authorities throughout the planning and pre-planning enquiry process.

Pre-Planning Enquiries

If you're a developer or land promoter considering a new site for development, we can help you with our pre-planning enquiry service. 

Discussing your site with us as early as possible provides significantly more opportunity to ensure a timely, cost effective and integrated approach to your development needs. You can use our response as evidence to support a planning application and demonstrate in your drainage plans that you have consulted with us. 

You can submit a Pre-Planning Enquiry request using our online applications service below.

Planning support

It's important that we understand growth and development across our region so that we can prepare for the future. 

Whilst we're not a statutory consultee in the planning application process, our Planning team proactively reviews planning applications for major development to understand how proposals might impact on our assets and ensure that we can serve proposed new development. 

We also work to influence planning policy as it changes and evolves in every Local Plan across the region.

When we consider a planning application we look to see if an applicant has undertaken a Pre-Planning Enquiry to inform their drainage solution. If they have, we will recommend that the application can be progressed. If the relevant Local Authority grants planning approval, as long as there are no planning conditions attached relating to drainage connections the applicant can move forward to applying for a sewer connection with us.  

Get in touch with our Planning team by emailing us at newdevelopmentplanning@nwl.co.uk or you can find contact details for our wider Developer Services team here.