The planning department is not open to visitors due to the fact that staff are continuing to work from home and there is  restricted access to the Council Offices. All applications, documents, comments on applications  and compliance complaints must be submitted electronically. Planning applications need to be made on the planning portal www.planningportal.co.uk,  CIL forms need to be emailed to CIL@arun.gov.uk , comments on applications need to be made on the online by searching for the application and entering a comment https://www.arun.gov.uk/weekly-lists  and compliance forms must be made on the online form https://www.arun.gov.uk/planning-compliance.

Search by address for full site history (back to 1948)

This search facility links directly to Arun District Council's Planning and Building Control database. It contains historical records of Planning & Building Regulation applications since 1948.

This facility is to be used when you wish to view the planning history relating to a particular property or site. If you have the actual planning reference or wish to search for applications between particular dates it is better to use the  Application search post 1987 . If you wish to search for Building Regulations it is best to use the  Building Regulation tracker .

Please also read the information below before accessing the records.  

 

From 1 April 2012 the South Downs National Park Authority has been responsible for all planning matters that fall within the National Park boundary so you will need to refer to their website to view planning applications and planning historyon sites within the National Park since this date. For further information and to check whether your propoerty lies within the National Park Boundary please see South Downs National Park. Please note that Arun District Council will continue to be responsible for all Building Control throughout the District regardless of whether it lies with the National Park.

 

General guidance on how the site history works

All Planning and Building Regulation applications received since 1948 are linked to a 'site'. You should therefore be able to trace the planning or building regulation history of a property or area of land through the site system providing an application has been made since 1948. (Please note there are some properties in the Arun District which were built prior to 1948 and have never made any planning applications so they will not appear on our records).

We have 3 main types of site which can relate to each other a bit like a family tree:-

'Main site'(MS) this would be a large site such as a housing estate i.e. it would show original applications (often outline planning applications) for the principle redevelopment of the land/building and would obviously show historical applications relating to the land/building previously there.

'Sub site' (SS) this is set up when subsequent applications are submitted i.e. a phase of a big estate or a number of roads (you would normally find the applications for the original build).

'Property site' (PS) this would show the applications that directly relate to the individual property i.e. an extension to a house.

All the above sites should link together if they exist. You may need to check all three types of site or just a property site and main site or just a stand alone property site.

'Application Sites' (AS) are sites that a made up for applications on odd pieces of land which don't have a proper address such as an area within a field. They are normally stand alone sites but may occasionally be linked to a sub site or main site I.E. a garage compound within a housing estate.

Please be aware that we may hold the site details under a different description to that which you are searching for example you may know it as a house name but we may only know it under the street number. In this case it will be necessary to email a plan of the location to the office so that we can provide you with the name of the site as held on our records.

 

General information and help

These web pages will be unavailable between 1.00am - 1.15 am and 6.55am - 7.30am everyday for backups.

If you are experiencing problems accessing our system please view our Tips to resolve problems [pdf] 74KB which should help you.

Please view our Online Planning Guide which contains useful information on the planning process.

 

Using the site search

You can use this to find details of any planning and building regulation applications we hold against a particular property or piece of land. You can search on any part of an address and if you know the specific parish you can select it from the area drop down list. For example if you were to put 'High Street' in the box next to address and select 'Littlehampton' area and then click on the search button you should get a list of all sites in Littlehampton that contain the words 'High Street' as part of the address. Please bear in mind, that when you search, the system can only return the data you have asked it to search for. Extra care should be taken when entering addresses as our records may be held slightly differently. For example a site may be known as "land rear of" or there be a house name. If this is not included in the search field it will not be found. The system is only as up to date as our live data base and there will always be a delay between an application being received in the office and it appearing on the data base. In some cases it may be necessary to visit the office to ensure you have a full site history. Any information which does match your search will appear on the screen and you will then click on the view button. If more than one matching entry appears, select the one you are interested in by clicking on view.

Due to the way the computer database works the next result will come up split into two different time periods. Therefore to view a full site history for a particular property, you will need to click on the links under the applications columns for both 'Post 1987' and '1948-1987'. If it is a property with a related sub site or main site you also need to click on both date periods for that site also.

If its a site denoted with (SS) and it says Sub Site under the relationship heading it means there is also a main site (MS) which you will need to search for separately in order to view original outline applications.

For example: if you wanted to find the original outline application for a housing estate you would need to look under the main site (MS). If you were only interested in the detailed applications for the actual build of the new houses you would find these under the sub site (SS) and for any extensions or alterations relating specifically to the house itself you only need look under the property site for both time periods. The results will show on the screen. If you get a blank screen with 'no row returned' this means there are no applications relating to that particular site for that time period.

If there is a result all the applications will be listed and it is possible to click into the application reference number to view more details about the application. It should be noted that you will not get full details on this screen for applications made prior to May 1998.

 

Viewing plans online

Open the  Guide To Viewing Plans [pdf] 144KB for details on how to move images, magnify and scale or measure. Please also note that you need Java installed on your computer to read documents. No documents are published relating to Building Regulation submissions as these are not public documents

 

Copyright Acts (Section 47, Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988) and how it applies to the re-use of information.

 

Disclaimer

Arun District Council makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of information held on this website but cannot accept responsibility for and disclaims all responsibility for any loss or damage which may arise from the use of the information provided. No responsibility will be taken for any errors or omissions in the planning history information obtained by customers carrying out their own research on the Arun District Council website. Any actions taken as a result of information displayed on the site are undertaken entirely at the viewer’s own risk.

Arun District Council publishes documents that are submitted by applicants as part of planning applications but we have no control over the fact that they may contain links within them to other web sites. Please be aware that if you click on a link, you may be taken to sites that are nothing to do with Arun District Council and that Arun District Council is not promoting or in any way recommending the services or products that these may well be advertising or promoting