Should applicants have a free choice of any/all 'Oil and gas permission types' or does this need to be constrained to certain single/multiple choices by logic?

[James-Planningportal]

The 'Oil and gas permission types' follows the form, and allows applicants to select any/all types of permission.

However, this potentially allows selection of a massive amount of individual consents/reviews/variation of conditions/etc all within a single submission.

Some types would appear to be mutually exclusive, whereas others could be considered as complementary (i.e. a new full permission could cover either/both available options; an existing unimplemented permission may need renewal and conditions varied).

Also had feedback from MHCLG policy (Stephen Borrows) that, while it should be raised here for community review: "We agree some of these are not mutually exclusive. For e.g. from the list below an applicant may apply for a) and b) in the same application (theoretically). So we’d be minded to allow some multiple choice here."

Equally, there is no resultant logic based on the type selection to govern subsequent modules (i.e. if seeking to vary a condition, should all following modules be required)?

[colmjude]

Thanks James, this makes sense.

I think this points to a wider review of the oil and gas application rather than a quick change to this field.

The current model follows the form by allowing multiple oilgas-permission-types, but as you say that probably hides several different things:

• routes that may be mutually exclusive
• routes that may validly be combined
• routes that should trigger different follow-on questions or modules
• cases where an existing permission or condition needs to be referenced

Given Stephen’s feedback that some combinations may be valid, I do not think we should simply make this a single-choice field or hardcode constraints without more evidence.

Next steps

The next step is to treat this as part of a fuller review of the oil and gas application type, which also needs to include #404 , ideally with DM policy and minerals authority input.

One thing it would be useful to know now, to help us prioritise the work, is volume data. How common are these applications? How many are there a year?

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I’ve added the backlog and enhancement labels to make clear this needs a future design pass rather than a small field-level fix now.

[James-Planningportal]

One thing it would be useful to know now, to help us prioritise the work, is volume data. How common are these applications? How many are there a year?

Not a lot. Going by MHCLG stats for all relevant minerals applications, you're looking at 20-30 per year (725 recorded since 2000).

23 decided in 2025, and almost half of those were variations of conditions on existing permissions:

It may be more worthwhile to consider this alongside the standardisation of other minerals applications (which are currently completely standalone with each Minerals Authority providing their own forms) which was raised in #19 and added to wider list of types.

I guess the other wider question, is if this type is 'fit' for mandating in its current state with several outstanding questions and an acknowledgement from MHCLG that it requires a full review.