When asking for planning approval for a major project, you often have two choices: full planning permission or outline planning permission. If you look at the announcements on lampposts and council websites, you will see that large developers frequently pick outline planning approval. This means that they do not need to seek consent from all the local councils for which they are seeking approval. They just have to get approval from one of them. If any other council objects, then development can still go ahead, but more detailed plans must be submitted to these other councils for review. Outline planning permission is usually enough for large developments because the impact and effect that the project will have on the surrounding area can be predicted from its general layout and plan. For example, if a developer wants to build houses on a site and they know that most sites in this area are required to be open space, then they could apply for outline planning permission for their scheme without going through the lengthy process of requesting full planning permission. When applied for in advance, outline planning permission is much easier to obtain than full planning permission; you just need one council's support to give you the go-ahead. Large developments require specialist expertise to assess their impact on the environment and to prepare the application properly. It is therefore recommended that you engage with one of the many consultants who specialise in preparing applications of this nature.