Costs, Fees and Budgeting – Page 5
What planning applications, reports, surveys and appeals cost, with published fee schedules.
Costs, Fees and Budgeting articles – page 5
354 articlesFlood modelling where no model exists for your river
No hydraulic model for your watercourse turns a desk assessment into a commission. Here is the cost structure, the survey traps, and why scoping first saves a rerun.
Bat licence costs: the ecologist's time and the fee
A European protected species licence for bats is priced in ecologist days, not regulator fees. Here is where the money goes, and why a missed survey season costs more than the licence.
Transport Assessment cost: what makes one expensive
Surveys, modelling and mitigation drawings make up most of a Transport Assessment fee. Most of the cost is fixed by decisions taken before anyone is appointed.
What drives the cost of an acoustic survey
Engineer time, not equipment, sets the price of an acoustic survey. Here is what each cost driver does and which scoping decisions actually reduce the fee.
Grampian conditions and the cost of third party land
Grampian conditions move the whole commercial risk of third party land onto the applicant. Here is how the exposure builds, and what to do before consent rather than after.
Tree works applications are free: what the evidence costs
Applications for consent to work on a protected tree carry no council fee. The spending is the arboricultural report, access and equipment for the works, and evidence if the council refuses.
Wind tunnel testing: when the cost is unavoidable
What makes a wind tunnel study expensive is doing it twice. Fix the massing before the model is built, and use computational modelling for the design iteration.
Extending the life of a planning permission
Section 73 cannot lengthen a time limit and the extension procedure has gone. The choice is a lawful material operation or a fresh application on current policy.
The 30 year cost of a landscape management condition
A management condition is the longest-lived cost on a scheme. Build it up from the prescriptions, price the monitoring events, then discount the whole term to a present value.
Section 278 and section 38 costs in a development appraisal
The civil engineer's estimate is the works cost. The appraisal needs authority fees, legal costs, bond premium over its real duration and commuted sums for anything non standard.
What verified views and visual representations cost
A verified view is a survey exercise with a photography component. Here is what drives the cost, which level of representation each question needs, and how to programme the work.
Using build cost indices in a planning appraisal
An index figure without a base date tells a reviewer nothing. Here is how to move a build cost to the valuation date, forecast forward without double counting, and document it so it gets agreed.
What a validation refusal really costs
Validation failures are administrative, and their consequences are not. The determination period, the committee slot, the survey season and the free resubmission all turn on the valid date.
Budgeting the evidence base for a major residential scheme
Crossing ten units changes the document list, the consultees and the budget. Sequencing the desk work before the intrusive work is what keeps the technical spend under control.
Planning fee exemptions, concessions and the free go
A fee concession is either in the Regulations or it is not. Here is the full list, the conditions attached to each, and how to claim one without invalidating the application.
Planning application fees: how the national schedule works
Planning fees come from a national schedule, not from your council. Understanding the categories and what each fee is calculated from gets the figure right first time.
Budgeting a lawful development certificate application
Fees for lawful development certificates follow a fixed pattern, but the cost that bites is assembling tenancy, council tax and photographic evidence for a historic use. A line-by-line way to budget it.
Budgeting a viability appraisal and the review it triggers
Running a viability case commits you to the appraisal, the land value evidence under it, the council's independent review fee and the appraisals a section 106 review mechanism will require later.
Budgeting ground investigation for a brownfield plot
On a brownfield plot the budget question is not what the investigation costs but whether gas monitoring finishes before groundworks start. The stages, priced in order.
What an EIA screening and scoping request costs
Screening and scoping requests under the 2017 EIA Regulations carry no fee. The budget sits in the desk studies that make a request credible and the programme that follows.
Budgeting an off-site biodiversity credit purchase
Off-site units and statutory credits are the expensive end of biodiversity net gain. The cost structure, the spatial multiplier that catches people out, and when the money leaves.
What a planning agent's fixed fee usually includes
A planning agent's fixed fee buys the written and procedural work on a householder application. The exclusions, from drawings to resubmissions, are where later invoices come from.
Budgeting section 106 monitoring and review fees
The contribution is the headline number in a section 106 agreement. The monitoring fee, the authority's legal costs and the review mechanism charges are the lines that get missed in the appraisal.
Budgeting a prior approval application under Class MA
The application fee for a Class MA prior approval is the smallest line in the budget. The natural light assessment, the noise and contamination evidence and the space standard drawings are what the money goes on.
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