Do I need planning permission for dry lining?

Almost never for normal internal dry lining. Internal wall and ceiling finishing is permitted development under the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order, so Maidstone Borough Council planning department is not involved. The three exceptions worth knowing:

• Listed buildings: any internal alteration that affects character — even a re-skim on a protected ceiling — needs listed-building consent before work starts. Maidstone has a number of listed interiors in the town centre heritage area and parts of Boxley village
• External-facing work: anything that changes how the building looks from the outside (external render systems, EWI, replacing soffit boards) is planning territory, not just building control
• Change of use: converting a house (Use Class C3) to an HMO (sui generis) triggers the Maidstone Article 4 Direction — see our dedicated HMO licensing FAQs

What does involve Maidstone Borough Council Building Control, even when planning is not needed:

• Part A (Structure): removing or modifying a load-bearing wall, even partially
• Part B (Fire Safety): new fire-rated partitions, escape routes, garage-to-house separations
• Part E (Resistance to Sound): new walls or significant upgrades between flats, between bedsits in an HMO, or between a house and an attached garage converted to a room
• Part L (Conservation of fuel and power): thermal upgrades that change the U-value of an external wall — the typical 50–80mm insulated plasterboard on a Victorian terrace is a notifiable change
• Part C (Dampness): where work affects an existing DPC or introduces a new one
• Part F (Ventilation): where work reduces background ventilation, common in retrofit insulation schemes

For notifiable work, we file the Building Control application on your behalf and arrange the inspections (typically a pre-plasterboard check and a completion inspection). For non-notifiable work, we still build to BS 8212 best practice but no formal sign-off is needed.