Do I need consent for a new sign?

Many signs require advertisement consent, particularly illuminated ones and anything projecting over the highway. It is a separate application from planning permission, with its own criteria.

Can I convert a shop to a café?

Movement between certain commercial uses can fall within the same use class, but extraction, ventilation, noise and hours are the practical hurdles — a commercial kitchen extract duct on a Conservation Area elevation is usually the hardest part.

How long does a commercial application take?

Similar statutory periods to residential, but where signage, listed building and planning consents run together the practical timescale is set by the slowest of them. Submit them in parallel.

Do you work with national brands' standard formats?

We will adapt a standard format to what will actually be approved locally. On a Cornish Conservation Area frontage, a brand template applied unaltered is generally a refusal.

For businesses · Cornwall

Shopfronts and small commercial work in Cornwall — trading through a Conservation Area high street

Most Cornish town centres are Conservation Areas, and a great many commercial units sit in listed buildings. That makes a shopfront replacement a heritage application as much as a branding exercise, and it makes advertisement consent a separate approval that catches out national fit-out contractors every year.

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The consents involved

A commercial alteration frequently needs more than one, and they run on different timescales.

Planning permission for alterations to the shopfront or external appearance
Advertisement consent for signage, illumination and projecting signs — a separate regime
Listed Building Consent where the building is listed, including for internal fit-out
Building regulations for structural, fire, ventilation and accessibility work

What gets approved on a Cornish high street

Traditional shopfront grammar — pilasters, a proportioned fascia, a stallriser, recessed entrance — reads well and passes. Internally illuminated box fascias, oversized corporate signage and full-width plate glass at pavement level do not, and rebuilding a rejected fit-out is expensive.

Accessibility and the fit-out

Level or ramped access, door widths, WC provision and clear circulation are both a legal expectation and commercially sensible in towns with an older population and heavy summer footfall. Solving it at design stage is far cheaper than a retrofit ramp.

Frequently asked

Straight answers.

Do I need consent for a new sign?: Many signs require advertisement consent, particularly illuminated ones and anything projecting over the highway. It is a separate application from planning permission, with its own criteria.
Can I convert a shop to a café?: Movement between certain commercial uses can fall within the same use class, but extraction, ventilation, noise and hours are the practical hurdles — a commercial kitchen extract duct on a Conservation Area elevation is usually the hardest part.
How long does a commercial application take?: Similar statutory periods to residential, but where signage, listed building and planning consents run together the practical timescale is set by the slowest of them. Submit them in parallel.
Do you work with national brands' standard formats?: We will adapt a standard format to what will actually be approved locally. On a Cornish Conservation Area frontage, a brand template applied unaltered is generally a refusal.

Fitting out a Cornish commercial unit?

Tell us the address and the trading date you are working to — consent order matters.

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