Frequently asked questions
Self-assessment
You may include your Self-Assessment Certificate and Project Pack in a planning submission, and many customers do. It records a structured self-assessment against the twelve Building for a Healthy Life considerations, made by a named declarant on a stated date. It is not an independent review and carries no formal status in the planning process — where independent weight matters, the route is an Independent Design Review Panel Assessment.
Related: Start a self-assessment · Panel assessments
Yes. Any finalised self-assessment can be put before The Design Review Panel — the request is made from your recorded outcome page, and the Panel considers the scheme against the same twelve considerations. There is no time limit, though the Panel assesses the scheme as presented to it.
Related: Start a self-assessment · Panel assessments
Any scheme the Building for a Healthy Life framework itself suits — principally residential and mixed-use development, from small sites to strategic land. The considerations scale with the scheme: not every point bears equally on every site, and the tool gives you room to record context in comments.
Related: Start a self-assessment
Yes. You can upload plans and supporting documents against any consideration as you work. An Ordnance Survey location plan marked as such is required before you can finalise, because it defines the extent of the site you are assessing.
Related: Start a self-assessment
No — finalising locks the record deliberately, so that the certificate means something. Before you finalise, everything is editable for as long as you need. If a scheme changes materially after finalising, you can carry out a further self-assessment of the revised scheme at no charge.
Related: Start a self-assessment
Yes — this is how the tool is designed. Starting is free, answering is free, and the full indicative preview is free for as long as you keep working. Payment is taken only at the point you choose to finalise and receive your documents.
Related: Start a self-assessment
No. The outcome follows from your own answers, applying the published rule set out on the How it works page — the tool does not adjust it, and neither do we. A scheme showing ambers or reds is being told something useful while there is still time to act on it.
Related: Start a self-assessment · Panel assessments
Panel assessments
The Independent Design Review Panel Assessment (£4,750 + VAT) is a desk-based review of your finalised self-assessment and the material submitted with it. The Premium version (£6,950 + VAT) extends the desk review with a site visit and a Panel discussion with your design team. Both conclude in the Panel's own Design Review Panel Certificate.
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The Design Review Panel — an independent and impartial design review panel operating across England. Reviews are conducted by volunteer professionals drawn from architecture, urban design, landscape, planning, transport and ecology. Panellists receive no fee for a review and have no financial interest in its conclusion.
Related: Panel assessments
Yes. The Panel reviews your finalised self-assessment together with the plans and documents you provided, so the quality of what you upload shapes the quality of what comes back. What is needed is confirmed as part of our confirming your booking, or when an enquiry is taken forward.
Related: Panel assessments
The Panel aims to issue its certificate 14 working days after the latest of our confirming the booking, receiving cleared payment and receiving the information for review. For the Premium service, the same aim runs from the date of the Panel session.
Related: Panel assessments
Yes. Where a submission deadline will not wait, either Panel assessment can be expedited for an additional £975 + VAT, bringing the Panel's certificate to 7 working days, rather than fourteen, after the latest of our confirming the booking, receiving cleared payment and receiving the information for review. Expedited feedback is subject to Panel availability and is confirmed — or declined, with that part of your payment cancelled or refunded — as part of our confirmation of your booking.
Related: Panel assessments
Not in advance. In the interest of being demonstrably independent and impartial, the Panel does not reveal panellists' identities before a review. Panellists introduce themselves at the start of a session, and confirmation of who took part is available afterwards on request.
Related: Panel assessments
No. Panellists are selected by The Design Review Panel in its usual way, and are required to declare any conflict of interest. That selection process is part of what makes the Panel's certificate worth having.
Related: Panel assessments
The Panel's conclusions are the independent opinion of its volunteers, and their merits are not revisited — a conclusion you did not want is not an error. If you believe something went wrong procedurally, our complaints procedure applies and does not stop with us: complaints about the conduct of an assessment go to a named senior Panel chair, not to the people involved.
Related: Panel assessments
Yes, within the limits set out in the terms of sale. You can cancel at any time before we confirm your booking, and your payment is refunded, less only any payment-processing fee. After confirmation, and before we commission the Panel, we refund your payment less the administration fee and any payment-processing fee set out in the terms. Once we have commissioned the Panel the fee is non-refundable and the booking cannot be postponed — we tell you when we commission, so you always know which side of that line you are on. Panel time is volunteer time, so ask us before booking if timing is uncertain.
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Premium Panel assessment
Yes. Some teams use a Building for a Healthy Life assessment to structure the placemaking evidence and a full design review for the wider design questions. The two complement each other, and the Panel can advise on sequencing.
Related: Panel assessments
It may be. A structured record of where a scheme stands against the twelve considerations gives any subsequent review a clear starting point, and shows the panel what has already been considered and why.
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General and legal
That is not our claim to make — weight is always a matter for the decision-maker. What the National Planning Policy Framework states is that local planning authorities should encourage the appropriate use of design review and take into account its outcomes, including any design recommendations made by design review panels. A Self-Assessment Certificate records your own assessment; a Design Review Panel Certificate records the Panel's independent opinion.
Related: Panel assessments
Neither. BHL Assessments Ltd provides the online tool and facilitates independent assessment; reviews are carried out by The Design Review Panel. Nothing we or the Panel provide is professional advice, and nothing guarantees planning permission or any other approval.
Not us, and we claim no authorship of it. The framework is published independently and is publicly available on GOV.UK. This site provides a tool for assessing a scheme against it, and uses none of the framework's imagery, logos or quality marks.
Your contract is with BHL Assessments Ltd, and responsibility for the service — the tool, payment, delivery of documents, and the commissioning of Panel assessments — sits there. The Panel's findings are its own: reached independently, and not contingent on any self-assessment outcome recorded in this tool or on the fee paid.
Yes, and we publish how. The Design Review Panel and BHL Assessments Ltd are connected companies under common ownership, which is exactly why the safeguards exist: unpaid volunteer reviewers, the owner taking no part in findings, external professional codes, declared conflicts, and a complaints route that does not stop with us. The full picture is on the About page.
If you cannot find the answer you need, please contact us — we are happy to help.
More on how your information is handled is in the privacy notice, and worked examples of the documents are on the example output page.