Public Consultation for Review of Exempted Development

Our existing planning exemptions have been in place for over 20 years, with certain modifications over that period.

Society has changed and advanced over those two decades, with significant changes in how and where we live, work and spend our time as individuals, families, communities.

There has also been increased digitalisation of society, population growth and the need to provide infrastructure to meet current and future needs.

As a result of these changes, it is time to consider what we currently exempt from planning and assess whether it is fit for purpose and whether it could be improved.

We are encouraging anyone who is interested to make a submission to inform our policy and approach to what is considered as an exempted development from planning permission.

Please note: To take part in this consultation, you’ll need to log in or register on the consultation portal. This helps ensure your submission is securely recorded and allows you to save your progress if needed.

The deadline for submission is 26 August 2025.

Any submissions received after this date shall not be considered.

Exempted Development 2001 regulations - Schedule 2

Appendix 1-Proposed changes to exempt development regulations

Exempted Development Public Consultation Privacy Statement

All submissions and comments submitted to the Department for this purpose are subject to release under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2014 and the European Communities (Access to Information on the Environment) Regulations 2007-2014. Submissions are also subject to Data Protection legislation.

Personal, confidential or commercially sensitive information should not be included in your submission and it will be presumed that all information contained in your submission is releasable under the Freedom of Information Act 2014.

A privacy statement relating to any personal data that may be provided is available for download under the Documents heading.

Your feedback will be recorded, collated, analysed, and evaluated to determine appropriate changes to the Exempted Development Regulations. Please note that the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage may publish a summary of the survey results and may also publish anonymised data from the responses received.

Please note that submissions received may be made available without personal information on the Department’s website and may be shared, unless otherwise requested. In any event, all submissions received will be subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act and Data Protection legislation.