Glossary – Page 13
Substantive definitions of planning terms with their policy source and a worked example.
Glossary articles – page 13
484 articlesEnurement and personal planning permissions explained
Section 75 makes planning permission run with the land, so a personal permission is the exception. When councils grant one, what the condition should say, and how to remove it.
Section 62A applications: applying direct to the Inspectorate
Where a council is designated as underperforming, section 62A allows an application to go straight to the Planning Inspectorate. The route is category specific and costs you the right of appeal.
Statement of common ground: what it agrees and what it cannot
A statement of common ground fixes the uncontested facts before an inquiry, hearing or local plan examination, so the inspector can concentrate on the two or three judgements that are really in dispute.
Certificate of immunity from listing
Five years of certainty that a building will not be listed. It leaves conservation area controls untouched, and applying can result in the building being listed.
Design code: what it fixes and what it leaves open
Design codes fix the parameters that decide whether a street works and leave internal layout and detailed expression open. Which parameters are usually coded, how much weight a code carries, and how to argue a departure.
Standard method: calculating local housing need
The standard method produces one minimum annual housing need figure per authority. How the baseline and affordability adjustment work, how need differs from the adopted requirement, and what a supply shortfall actually changes.
Deemed consent for advertisements: what it covers
Deemed consent grants advertisement consent automatically to whole classes of display under the 2007 Regulations. Here is what falls inside a class, what the standard conditions require, and when express consent is needed instead.
Severability: when part of a permission survives
Severability decides whether an unlawful condition can be removed without destroying the permission it sits on. The test turns on whether the condition is fundamental to what was granted.
Prior approval: what the council may and may not consider
Prior approval is not a planning application. The permission comes from the General Permitted Development Order, and the council may only consider the matters that class actually lists.
Ransom strip: the land that blocks access to a site
A ransom strip is a narrow parcel of land controlling access to a development site. Here is how strips arise, what planning permission does not give you, and the valuation principles applied when one is released.
Certificate of appropriate alternative development
A CAAD states what permission would have been granted on land being compulsorily acquired, had the scheme never existed. It fixes the planning assumptions behind the compensation figure.
Impact risk zone: the SSSI consultation trigger
Impact risk zones tell a council when to consult Natural England about a site of special scientific interest. The zone restricts nothing by itself, but it changes what your application needs to carry.
Development high risk area: coal mining legacy explained
Sites in a development high risk area need a coal mining risk assessment with the planning application. Here is what the designation records and what it changes on site.
Twin tracking: running two applications at once
Once an appeal is lodged on non-determination the council loses jurisdiction, so an applicant with one application must choose between appealing and negotiating. Twin tracking removes that choice, at a price.
Fallback position: using an existing lawful option
A fallback argument asks the decision maker to compare the proposal against what would lawfully happen instead. It is powerful on the right facts and fails whenever the alternative is asserted rather than evidenced.
Temporary stop notice: an immediate halt to works
Section 171E lets a council halt an activity the moment the notice is displayed, with no appeal to the Planning Inspectorate. What it can and cannot prohibit, where compensation arises, and how to respond.
Breach of condition notice: the no-appeal route
A breach of condition notice is served under section 187A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and cannot be appealed to the Planning Inspectorate. Here is what it binds you to, the two statutory defences, and the routes that actually work.
Section 215 notice: untidy land and buildings
Section 215 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 lets a council require steps to remedy land that harms the amenity of the area, with no breach of planning control required.
Sensitive area: the EIA definition that removes thresholds
Sensitive area is defined in regulation 2(1) of the EIA Regulations 2017. If any part of a development sits inside one, the Schedule 2 thresholds stop applying and screening becomes unavoidable.
Scoping opinion: agreeing what the ES covers
A scoping opinion is the authority's written statement of what an Environmental Statement must assess. Requested under regulation 15, adopted in five weeks, and the least costly way to control an EIA evidence budget.
Habitat banks and buying off-site biodiversity units
Off-site units are a legal product, not a commodity. What you are buying is an entry on a register backed by a 30 year agreement, and the paperwork is the asset.
Strategic significance in the statutory biodiversity metric
Strategic significance rewards habitat in the right place. Claiming the high category without a strategy or plan designation behind it is the error reviewers see most.
Windfall sites: how councils count unplanned homes in supply
Windfall allowances quietly do a lot of work in housing land supply arguments. The Framework sets a demanding evidence test, and an inflated allowance is worth challenging.
Statutory undertakers and the rights that sit outside planning
Statutory undertakers are the utility and transport bodies that Parliament has authorised to build and maintain apparatus. Their rights can reshape your site programme before a planning application is even drafted.
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