Constraint isn’t refusal.
A designation doesn’t decide the answer. It raises the evidential bar — and unlike the answer, the bar is knowable in advance.
Is this you?
What’s involved
Every designation has a test, and the tests are different
| Designation | The question it actually asks |
|---|---|
| Green belt | Very special circumstances — or grey belt, where different rules apply |
| Conservation area | Does it preserve or enhance character or appearance — not whether it’s attractive |
| Listed building / setting | Significance first; harm identified, characterised, then weighed |
| National Landscape | Great weight to natural beauty — scale and siting over style |
| Flood risk | Sequential test, then exception test — failed more often on evidence than principle |
| Protected species | A separate legal regime — Natural England’s three licence tests |
The mistake that costs people most is treating “constrained” as one thing. Answering the wrong question is why well-intentioned applications fail.
Constraints stack, and they interact
Real sites rarely have one. A listed barn in a conservation area within a National Landscape, with bats in the roof, has four regimes running at once — and they can pull against each other. Lighting that satisfies security can breach the bat licence.
Sequencing that properly, and knowing which constraint to resolve first, is most of the skill.
Biodiversity net gain changed this summer
From 31 July 2026 there is a new exemption for non-major development on sites of 0.2 hectares or smaller where priority habitat isn’t affected — and the self-build exemption has been withdrawn. Anyone relying on it needs re-checking.
Exempt from BNG is not the same as unconstrained. Policy and wider protections still apply.
Proof
A consent on a genuinely constrained site — designation, authority, outcome.
Questions we’re asked
Can you build in the green belt?
Sometimes. Inappropriate development needs very special circumstances, but the framework now also recognises grey belt, where different tests apply. Which category a site falls into is an evidenced judgement, not a look at a map.
There are bats. Is the project dead?
No, but it’s now on a different timetable. Survey seasons are fixed and can’t be compressed, so the cost of discovering bats late is usually months rather than money.
Does BNG still apply to my extension?
Householder development was already outside it, and since 31 July 2026 there’s an exemption for non-major sites of 0.2 hectares or less. If you were relying on the self-build exemption, that has been withdrawn.
The neighbour got permission for the same thing.
Not determinative, but material — and if the authority has approved a comparable scheme under the same policy, that needs explaining rather than ignoring.
Send us the address.
We’ll tell you what’s actually on it — designations, history, and the constraints nobody’s mentioned yet — and whether the scheme you have in mind can be evidenced.
Send us the site