Quite often, yes. And the businesses that find out afterwards tend to find out in the worst way, which is a letter from the council asking them to take the sign down.
The rules are not complicated once you know where the lines are. This is a plain explanation of when you need consent for a shopfront sign in Manchester, what you can do without asking anyone, and why the answer changes depending on which street you are on.
Two kinds of permission, and they are not the same thing
Signage in England is not covered by ordinary planning permission. It sits under its own set of rules, the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007, and the thing you apply for is called advertisement consent.
There are two routes.
Deemed consent means the sign falls into a category the regulations already allow, so you can put it up without applying. It still has to meet the conditions attached to that category.
Express consent means you have to apply to the council and wait for a decision.
Separately from all of this, if your building is listed you will also need listed building consent for anything fixed to it. That is a different application with a different test, and it applies whether or not the sign needs advertisement consent.
What you can usually do without applying
The most useful category for a shop is the one covering signs on the premises of the business they advertise. Broadly, a non-illuminated fascia sign on your own shopfront falls under deemed consent if it stays within the size and height limits set out in the regulations. The commonly applied limits are a maximum sign area of around 1.55 square metres, letters no taller than 0.75 metres, and nothing higher than 4.6 metres above ground level or above the bottom of the first floor windows, whichever is lower.
In an Area of Special Control, the letter height limit drops to 0.3 metres.
There are similar allowances for forecourt signs and for temporary signs during building work, each with their own conditions.
The catch is that these allowances are narrower than most shopfronts. A standard retail unit fascia is often larger than 1.55 square metres on its own, which is why a great many shop signs need an application even though the owner assumed they did not.
When you definitely need to apply
You need express consent if your sign is:
- illuminated, in almost all cases
- larger than the deemed consent limits
- higher than the deemed consent limits allow
- animated, flashing or changing
- freestanding rather than fixed to the building, in most cases
- advertising something other than the business on the premises
- on a listed building, or in a conservation area where the council has tightened the rules
Illumination is the one that catches people. If you are putting up anything lit, assume you are applying.
Why Manchester is stricter than you might expect
Manchester has an unusual amount of protected townscape for a city its size. Conservation areas cover large parts of the centre and the inner districts, including areas around the Northern Quarter, Castlefield, Ancoats and Whitworth Street, and there are a great many listed buildings among the converted warehouses and mills that now house bars, offices and shops. Check the council’s conservation area maps for the specific boundary, because they do not follow obvious lines and a single street can be inside on one side and outside on the other.
Inside a conservation area, councils generally expect signage to be more restrained. In practice that tends to mean:
- individually mounted letters rather than a large illuminated box
- externally lit or halo-lit rather than a bright internally illuminated panel
- materials and colours in keeping with the building
- fixings into mortar joints rather than into brick or stone faces
None of that makes an illuminated sign impossible. It changes what kind of illuminated sign gets approved.
It is also worth remembering that “Manchester” covers ten separate local authorities. Manchester City Council, Salford, Trafford, Stockport, Tameside, Oldham, Rochdale, Bury, Bolton and Wigan each run their own planning department, each publish their own shopfront guidance, and each have their own conservation areas. A unit in Chorlton and a unit in Altrincham are dealing with different councils.
What the council can and cannot object to
This part surprises people. When a council decides an advertisement consent application, it can only consider two things: amenity and public safety.
Amenity covers visual impact, the character of the area and the effect on the building. Public safety covers whether the sign could distract drivers, obscure a sight line, dazzle at night or fall on someone.
It cannot refuse your sign because it dislikes your business, your trading hours or your prices. If a refusal wanders outside amenity and public safety, that is grounds for an appeal.
Express consent is normally granted for five years, after which the sign can usually stay under deemed consent unless the council serves a discontinuance notice.
What happens if you skip it
Displaying an advertisement without consent is a criminal offence rather than a civil one, which is a heavier framing than most business owners expect. In practice councils usually start with a letter asking you to apply retrospectively or remove the sign. If it goes further, it can result in a fine, and enforcement can continue for as long as the sign is up.
The bigger risk is commercial. You have paid for a sign, paid for it to be installed, and you may then be paying to take it down, apply, redesign it and fit a second one.
How to get it right the first time
Find out which council you are in. Postcode boundaries around Manchester are not intuitive.
Check whether the building is listed and whether it is in a conservation area, using the council’s own maps.
Read the council’s shopfront design guidance if they publish one. Several of the Greater Manchester authorities do, and it tells you what they will accept before you spend anything on design.
Talk to your landlord. Your lease will usually have signage conditions and they are often stricter than the council’s.
Design to the guidance rather than designing first and applying afterwards. A scheme drawn with the conservation area in mind gets through far more often than a standard illuminated tray that is then argued about for two months.
Allow time. An advertisement consent application takes several weeks to determine, and applications are frequently held up by missing drawings rather than by objections.
We can handle this part
We survey the building, tell you what is likely to be acceptable, prepare the drawings and elevations an application needs, and submit it. If the council wants changes, we deal with them.
You can see what we make and where we work on our Manchester shop and business signs page, and if you want to understand what an illuminated sign is likely to cost before you commit, we have a cost guide.
Send us the address and a photo of the frontage and we will tell you where you stand.