Search any Sevenoaks application by postcode or reference on Public Access, free and with no account. You get 21 days to comment; what actually counts is set out here.

If a new house, an extension, a shop conversion or a 136-home estate is proposed near you in the Sevenoaks district, you have a right to see the plans and a right to comment before anyone decides them. The whole record is online, free, and open to anyone, neighbour or not. Most people only find out a scheme exists once the diggers arrive. This is a plain guide to the Sevenoaks planning portal, where every application lives, how long you get to have your say, what the council will and will not listen to, and a roundup of the notable schemes shaping the district right now.

The quick answer

The Sevenoaks planning portal is Public Access, run by Sevenoaks District Council at pa.sevenoaks.gov.uk/online-applications. It is free, and you need no account to look: search by street, postcode or a reference such as 21/01254/FUL to open the drawings, the officer reports, the case officer’s name and the comment deadline. To see what has just been lodged near you, open the weekly list and filter it by your parish. You normally get 21 days to comment, and comments must be in writing. One catch trips people up: you cannot submit a new application on Public Access. That goes through the national Planning Portal instead.

Where to find Sevenoaks planning applications

Every application received or decided by Sevenoaks District Council goes on one online register, the Public Access portal. You can search it here:

You do not need an account to look. Type a street name, a postcode, or an application reference number, and you get the documents, the drawings, the case officer, the dates, and any comments already submitted. The council confirms that “weekly lists of all planning applications received or decided by us are available online through our PublicAccess portal”, and you can open that weekly list directly to see what landed in the last seven days.

The Sevenoaks planning portal, and how to read a reference number

If you have heard the council’s system called the “Sevenoaks planning portal”, that is the same thing as Public Access: one register, one address, covering the whole district.

A reference number looks like 21/01254/FUL. The two digits are the year, the middle block is the running number, and the suffix tells you the type: FUL is a full application, HOUSE is a householder application such as an extension, LBC is listed building consent, and OUT is outline. If you only know the address, the search box will find it.

What it means for you

The practical upside is that you can check any address before you buy, rent, object, or just before you wonder what the scaffolding next door is for. The plans, the heritage statements, the drainage reports, the highways comments, all of it sits on the same page. If a neighbour is building, the portal is where you read exactly what was approved, and to what conditions.

How to search the Sevenoaks planning portal, step by step

Once you know the fields, the portal takes under a minute:

  1. Open pa.sevenoaks.gov.uk/online-applications. No login is needed to view.
  2. Choose Simple Search for a quick look, or Advanced Search to filter by ward, date range or application type.
  3. Type a street name, a full postcode, or a reference such as 21/01254/FUL. If you are unsure of the exact address, keep the keyword loose and narrow it from the results.
  4. Open an application, then use the Documents tab for the drawings, heritage and drainage reports, and the Comments tab to read or add a representation.
  5. Note the case officer, the target decision date and the consultation deadline shown on the summary, so you know how long you have to comment.

If you would rather not run a search, open the weekly list to see everything registered or decided across the district in the last seven days.

Get email alerts for new applications near you

Running the same search every week is easy to forget, and the portal can do it for you. Register a free account on Public Access (top right of pa.sevenoaks.gov.uk/online-applications), run the search you care about, usually a postcode, a street or your ward, then use Save Search and switch on notifications. The portal then emails you whenever a new application that matches is validated, so you hear about a neighbour’s plans on day one rather than after the 21-day comment window has half gone. It is the single best habit if you want to keep an eye on a specific street: set the search once and let the council’s own system watch it for you. An account also lets you track individual applications and manage the comments you have already submitted.

How long you get to comment

You normally have 21 days to comment from the point the consultation starts. That is the standard statutory minimum across England, and Sevenoaks works to it: the date is set out in the letter sent to nearby properties, or on the site notice fixed near the application, as the national guidance from Planning Aid explains. The exact deadline for each application is shown on its Public Access page, so check there rather than counting on your fingers.

Not everyone gets a letter. Only neighbours in the immediate vicinity are usually notified directly, although the council casts a wider net for larger or more sensitive schemes, and for those it also puts up a site notice or publishes a press notice. If you want to be sure you never miss one near you, the reliable habit is to read the weekly list rather than wait for a letter that may not come.

Late comments are not automatically binned. Most planning authorities still take account of points received after the 21 days where the decision has not yet been made, but you should contact the case officer named on the application if you cannot meet the date.

How to comment, and what actually counts

Comments must be in writing. The council is explicit: “comments must be made in writing online or by email or letter. We are unable to accept comments verbally, via social media or by video”, per the council’s guidance. You can:

  • comment online through the Public Access portal,
  • email planning.comments@sevenoaks.gov.uk quoting the reference and the address, or
  • write to the Planning Department, Council Offices, Argyle Road, Sevenoaks, TN13 1HG.

Whichever route you choose, quote the application reference number and the site address so your comment is filed against the right scheme.

Here is the part people get wrong. A planning decision can only turn on material planning considerations, the planning merits of the proposal, not on how much you dislike the applicant or fear for your house price. Points that carry weight include the effect on neighbours’ light and privacy, highway safety and parking, design and the character of the area, noise, loss of trees or green space, flooding and drainage, and conflict with the council’s own planning policies. Points that carry little or no weight include loss of a private view, the impact on property values, competition with an existing business, and the identity or conduct of the applicant. Writing your objection in the language of the planning merits is the single thing that makes it count.

A few more things worth knowing before you send:

  • Your comment is public. The council states that “comments we receive will be made available for public inspection on our website.” Your name and address are held on file so the council can keep you updated, but those details are not published.
  • Anonymous comments are ignored. If you do not give your name and address, the council will not take the comment into account.
  • Abuse is removed. Anything “of an inappropriate, derogatory or defamatory nature will not be taken into account or published.”
  • Quality beats quantity. A handful of clear, planning-grounded objections often weighs more than a hundred copy-pasted ones.

Who decides, and how long it takes

Most applications never go before politicians. They are decided by planning officers under delegated powers. The council aims to decide most applications within 8 weeks, or 13 weeks for large or complex schemes, according to its guidance on how applications are decided. A scheme goes to the Development Management Committee, where elected councillors vote in public, only in particular cases: at a district councillor’s request, or where the proposal is significant, controversial or sensitive. That committee route is exactly how the biggest local schemes get fought out, and why turning up or writing in can matter.

Applying through the planning portal, and appealing a refusal

Searching and commenting is only half of what people mean by the “Sevenoaks planning portal”. If you are the one building, you need to submit an application, and that is a different system. Sevenoaks does not take new applications on its Public Access site. You lodge them through the national Planning Portal at planningportal.co.uk, which is the standard online route for the whole of England, or you send a paper form. Whichever you use, the council asks that supporting plans and documents be emailed to planning.validation@sevenoaks.gov.uk or posted to the Development Management Service, Council Offices, Argyle Road, Sevenoaks, TN13 1HG, as its apply for planning permission guidance sets out.

The step that trips applicants up is validation. The council checks that your submission includes everything on its validation checklist, the right plans, the correct fee and any required reports, before it registers the application. If anything is missing the application is invalid and the clock does not start, so it pays to work through the checklist before you submit rather than after. Once the council validates it, the application appears on the Public Access portal for anyone to search, exactly like the ones you looked up above, and your 8 or 13 week clock begins.

If the council refuses permission, or you disagree with a condition, the applicant (not objectors) can appeal to the Planning Inspectorate, the government body that decides appeals independently of the council. Appeals are handled on the national Appeals Casework Portal at acp.planninginspectorate.gov.uk, where decisions are also published. If you commented on the original application, the council forwards your representation to the Inspectorate, and you are told if there is a further chance to have your say. So the full life of a scheme runs across two portals: the council’s Public Access for the application itself, and the Inspectorate for any appeal that follows.

Finding an old decision, and what to do when the portal shows nothing

The other half of the traffic to Public Access is not people objecting to a new scheme. It is people trying to prove that something already built was allowed: a buyer’s solicitor asking for the permission for a conservatory, an owner selling a house with a loft conversion, a neighbour checking whether an outbuilding was ever approved. The route is the same search box, but what you are looking for is different. Search by address rather than reference, open the application, and go to the Documents tab: the file you want is the decision notice, the one-page document that says whether permission was granted or refused and lists the conditions. That, not the drawings, is what a conveyancer will ask for.

If the address returns nothing, there are three ordinary explanations before you assume a problem.

  • The work never needed permission. Most modest extensions, outbuildings, and loft conversions are permitted development, and permitted development leaves no application on the register at all.
  • It predates the online record. Public Access holds the council’s digitised file, not the entire history of the district. Older permissions may exist only on paper, and the council can be asked for them directly.
  • You are searching the wrong thing. Conservation area consent, listed building consent and building regulations approval are separate records. Building control in particular is a different service with a different file, and a building regulations completion certificate is not planning permission.

Where nothing exists on the register and you need something formal, the answer is a Lawful Development Certificate. It does not grant permission; it certifies that what is there is lawful, either because it never needed permission or because it has stood long enough to be immune from enforcement. The fee for an existing use is the same as a full application, and for a proposed use it is half of that.

What it costs to apply, at the 2026 rates

Fees in England are set nationally, not by Sevenoaks, and they rose by 3.8% on 1 April 2026, an uplift tied to the September 2025 consumer price index. The rates below are the current ones from the Planning Portal fee schedule for England, and they apply at Sevenoaks exactly as they do anywhere else in the country.

What you are applying for Fee from 1 April 2026
Householder: extension, improvement or alteration of one house £548
Outbuilding, gates, fences, walls or other works inside your boundary £272
Permission in principle £531 per 0.1 hectare
Removing or varying a condition, householder £89
Discharging conditions, householder £89
Discharging conditions, anything else £309
Non-material amendment, householder £46
Non-material amendment, any other case £309

Two things people get caught by. The fee is due when you submit, and an application without the right fee is not valid, so the clock does not start. And the small fees are the ones that surprise: coming back later to discharge a condition, or to make a minor change to something already approved, is a fresh application with its own charge.

Reporting a breach, when the portal is not the answer

If work near you does not match what was approved, or nothing was ever applied for, the portal cannot help. That goes to planning enforcement, which is a separate service, and Sevenoaks takes reports through an online form.

The council asks for your name, your address, your contact details, the full address the complaint relates to, and what you say the breach is. Two points matter here. It will not investigate anonymous complaints, so you have to give your name. But it undertakes to keep your identity confidential during the investigation, which is the reassurance most people are actually looking for before they report a neighbour.

There is also a published list of what enforcement will not take on, and it saves a wasted report:

  • boundary or land ownership disputes,
  • commercial vehicles parked on residential roads,
  • works that have only been talked about and not started,
  • a business run from home with minimal impact,
  • touring caravans and motorhomes on residential property,
  • clearing undergrowth or trees, unless in a conservation area or the trees are protected,
  • road safety matters.

Notices the council has already served, meaning enforcement notices, stop notices and breach of condition notices, are published on its planning enforcement register, which is worth a look before you report: the case may already be running.

Notable Sevenoaks planning schemes right now

A handful of applications are shaping the district. Here are the ones worth knowing, all checkable on the portal. For the week-by-week picture we publish a running roundup of what has just landed on the register and a report of every decision the committee makes, including the 135-home Edenbridge green belt scheme granted in June.

The Cramptons Road gasworks estate (ref 21/01254/FUL)

The old Sevenoaks gasholder station off Cramptons Road and Otford Road is the scheme that set the tone for the district’s green belt arguments. The application, reference 21/01254/FUL, sought 136 homes on the former Southern Gas Networks site, the most striking part being a 30 metre, ten-storey “rotunda” block echoing the shape of the old gas cylinders. It drew more than 500 public objections, yet the Development Management Committee approved it on 7 November 2024 on a tied 7-7 vote, with the chairman using his casting vote to grant permission, as KentOnline reported. Only 8 of the homes were designated affordable. The committee papers are on the council’s decision record. It is a textbook case of a delegated officer call escalating to a public committee vote.

Other sites the Sevenoaks Society is watching

The Sevenoaks Society, the town’s amenity body, currently tracks several town-centre and edge sites, including the former Edwards Electrical premises at 166 High Street, the expansion of Trinity School, and parking changes at Knole. The society’s page is a useful steer on which live applications are drawing local concern, and each can be looked up by address on the council portal.

The Local Plan: consultation open until 17 September 2026

Bigger than any single application is the new Local Plan, which will set where development can go across the district from 2027 to 2042. The government has handed Sevenoaks a target of 17,460 homes over those 15 years, a 63% increase on the previous requirement, which is why the plan has to look at Green Belt and downgraded “Grey Belt” land as well as brownfield.

The final consultation is open now. The Regulation 19 Publication stage runs from 23 July to 17 September 2026, and it is the last formal chance to put a comment on the record before the plan goes to a government inspector. At this stage the council is not asking for new sites: it is asking whether the published plan is “sound” and legally compliant, so comments that argue a specific allocation or policy fails those tests carry more weight than a general objection to building. You can comment through the council’s portal at sevenoaks.gov.uk/reg19, by email to planning.policy@sevenoaks.gov.uk, or by post to Regulation 19 Publication Comments, Planning Policy, Sevenoaks District Council, Argyle Road, Sevenoaks, TN13 1HG. Paper copies are in local libraries and at the council offices. Our guide to how to have your say on the 17,460 homes sets out the practical steps, and the site-by-site detail is here.

If a site near you is allocated in the plan, the principle of building there becomes much harder to resist when a detailed application follows, so this is the stage to engage even if nothing is proposed on your street yet.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a planning application cost in Sevenoaks?

The fees are national, not local, and rose 3.8% on 1 April 2026. A householder application to extend or alter one house is £548. Works inside your boundary such as an outbuilding, gates, fences or walls are £272. Discharging a condition on a householder permission is £89, and a non-material amendment is £46. The full list is in the Planning Portal fee schedule. An application submitted without the correct fee is invalid, so the decision clock does not start.

How do I find the planning permission for a house I am buying?

Search Public Access by the address rather than a reference, open the application and use the Documents tab: the document a solicitor wants is the decision notice, not the drawings. If nothing comes up, the work was probably permitted development and never needed an application, or the permission predates the digitised record. Where you need something formal and there is no record, apply for a Lawful Development Certificate.

How do I report a planning breach in Sevenoaks?

Through the council’s online enforcement form, with your name, address, contact details, the address complained of and what the breach is. The council will not investigate anonymous complaints, but it does undertake to keep your identity confidential. It will not deal with boundary disputes, commercial vehicles on residential roads, home businesses with minimal impact, touring caravans, or road safety.

How do I find planning applications in Sevenoaks?

Search the council’s Public Access portal at pa.sevenoaks.gov.uk/online-applications by address, postcode or reference number. No account is needed. The weekly list shows everything received or decided in the last seven days.

What is the Sevenoaks planning portal?

It is the council’s online planning register, branded Public Access, at pa.sevenoaks.gov.uk/online-applications. Some residents call it the Sevenoaks planning portal; it is the same free system. Search it by address, postcode or reference number to see any application’s plans, documents, case officer and comment deadline. No account is required.

How long do I have to comment on a Sevenoaks planning application?

Normally 21 days from when the consultation starts. The exact deadline is on the application’s page on the portal and in the neighbour letter or site notice, per Planning Aid guidance. Late comments are often still considered if the decision has not been made, but contact the case officer if you cannot meet the date.

How do I comment on or object to a Sevenoaks planning application?

In writing only: online through the portal, by email to planning.comments@sevenoaks.gov.uk, or by post to the Planning Department, Argyle Road, Sevenoaks, TN13 1HG. Quote the reference and address, and frame your points around the planning merits, not personal views, as the council explains.

Are comments on Sevenoaks planning applications made public?

Yes. The council publishes comments for public inspection on its website, though your name and address are held on file rather than published. Anonymous comments are not taken into account.

Who decides Sevenoaks planning applications?

Most are decided by planning officers under delegated powers, with a target of 8 weeks (or 13 weeks for major schemes). Significant, controversial or sensitive cases go to the Development Management Committee, where councillors vote in public, according to the council’s process.

Sources

The fee schedule, the enforcement rules, the portal links, the weekly list and the national Planning Portal were checked on 18 August 2026; the Local Plan section on 12 August 2026; other details on 6 June 2026. Comment deadlines and application statuses change, so always confirm on the Public Access portal before relying on a date.

Image: “Sevenoaks Place, the High Street, Sevenoaks” by Stefan Czapski, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sevenoaks_Place,the_High_Street,_Sevenoaks-geograph.org.uk-_3051247.jpg).