Do you Need Planning Permission to Connect a Home to Gas, Water & Electricity?

When developing new domestic, commercial and industrial buildings, or renovating an existing one, it’s important to ensure that you have all the necessary gas, electricity and water connections in place. That’s why it’s essential to arrange these connections in the early stages of development, helping to avoid delays in your building process and getting the job done on time.

Generally, you can never really be too early when arranging your utility connections as you’ll want to make sure that you’ve given enough time in advance for all of the design and planning to take place and for all the relevant requests for the DNOs and water companies to be approved so your project can go ahead without delay.

Can You Be Too Early When Arranging Utility Connections?

Normally, when you’re applying for utility connections, most connection companies will expect you to have received planning permission before they get started with the project.

This is because it is essential for them to have the final plans for the development before they start to design the networks for gas, electricity and water, after all, if you don’t receive planning permission and end up having to make changed to your initial plans, the connections company may have to redo all of the designs which can end up costing you a lot of time and money.

It would also be very rare for a connections company to go ahead and start the work on a site that hasn’t received planning permission as this may cause a planning breach, which could potentially result in your local council issuing a enforcement notice that requires you to put things back as they were, which once again, can end up costing you a lot of time and money.

How to Apply for New Multi-Utility Connections

In order to apply for new water, electricity and gas connections, you must provide us with the correct necessary information so we can submit an application to the Distribution Network Operators (DNOs) and water providers as soon as possible to prevent any delays in the process.

You’ll need to provide us with:

• The property or site’s full address. If you are installing electricity connections for new builds then you must provide the name of the site so it can be identified prior to the registration.

• A CAD/planning drawing of the property.

• Which services do you require: do you just need water or gas and electricity connections too?

What Happens Next?

Once your development plans have been approved and we have received all of the necessary information, we will design the gas, water and electricity connection plans and produce a CAD drawing of the design for you to either approve, or suggest alterations.

From this point, we will then liaise with you and the local council about the legalities of the work and when all has been settled, the design will be sent to your local DNOs and water supplier for approval.

Once everything has been approved and finalised, we’ll be able to schedule the work and provide you with an accurate timescale for the project.

New Multi-Utility Connections with National Energy Direct

For more information on arranging your utility connections with National Energy Direct, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our friendly team who will be more than happy to answer any queries you may have.