Doncaster Council

Intended buildings or substantial alterations or additions to buildings

Plans of intended buildings or substantial alterations or additions to buildings require the prior approval of the local authority. This approval has been necessary in Doncaster borough since 1851 and in the surrounding area since 1875. The plans deposited with these authorities were kept from the 1890s to 1974, although there are some plans for Doncaster borough from the 1860s onwards.

The purpose of submitting plans was to allow the local authority to ensure that the building was structurally sound and would have adequate light, ventilation and drainage. This is an entirely separate process from the granting of planning permission, introduced in 1947. It is highly unlikely that building control plans will be of use in disputes over property boundaries, as the plans were not drawn up with this in mind.

Doncaster Archives holds building control plans for the following former local authorities:

To find a building control plan, you will first need to search the plan registers which each authority kept. The registers contain entries in the date order in which plans were submitted, although a number have indexes of place or personal names.   

Doncaster Archives cannot guarantee that all the plans listed in the registers have survived. There are over ninety thousand plans, so it is impossible for us to be certain that any particular plan is available.   

There are copyright restrictions on the copying of building control plans, which means that it may not be possible for Doncaster Archives to provide copies of them for you.   

Building control records after 31 March 1974 are not held by Doncaster Archives. These are held by the Building Control section based at Danum House, St Sepulchre Gate, Doncaster. The telephone number for Building Control is (01302) 734848.