Enforcing Planning Control
Planning enforcement helps protect Dartmoor National Park’s landscape, buildings and environment by addressing unauthorised development and ensuring approved developments are carried out correctly.
A breach of planning control may include:
- carrying out building, engineering or other development without the required planning permission
- changing the use of land or buildings without permission
- failing to comply with approved plans or conditions attached to a planning permission.
When investigating possible breaches, we take a proportionate and balanced approach, considering both individual circumstances and the wider public interest.
We will:
- investigate the facts and assess any planning harm
- seek to resolve issues through negotiation where possible
- encourage retrospective applications where appropriate
- use formal enforcement powers where necessary
- take no further action where it is not expedient to act.
Further information is available in our Local Enforcement Plan.
Before reporting a possible breach, please check whether planning permission has already been granted using our online planning register. Select 'Search for a Planning Application' and enter the address of the site in question.
If you believe there has been a breach of planning control causing planning harm, you can report it through our planning portal.
You will need to create an account or sign in before submitting a report. The ‘Report a Breach of Planning Regulations’ option will only appear once you are logged in. This helps us prevent anonymous or malicious complaints and allows officers to contact you if further information is required.
How to report a possible breach
- Log in to our planning portal
- Create an account or sign in
- Select the ‘Planning’ icon
- Select ‘Report a Breach of Planning Regulations’
- Enter the requested details and submit the form
Please provide as much information as possible. Photographs can be helpful, but please do not put yourself at risk when taking them.
We will normally keep complainant details confidential unless disclosure is required as part of legal proceedings. Where possible, we will inform you beforehand.
The Enforcement Register contains details of Enforcement Notices, Stop Notices and Breach of Condition Notices issued by the Authority.
You can search the register through our planning portal to see whether formal enforcement action has already been taken in relation to a site or issue.
Further information about planning enforcement, breaches of planning control and the enforcement process is available on the UK Government website: