Professionals and Qualifications – Page 12
Who is competent to prepare or sign off each report, and how to brief and check them.
Professionals and Qualifications articles – page 12
372 articlesIndependence and conflicts of interest in planning evidence
Expert evidence is the author's own opinion and the duty runs to the decision maker, not the client. The conflicts that recur, and how to declare them in time.
Reviewing a specialist report you did not commission
Technical reports usually fail on scope, dates or the wrong scheme rather than on the science. How to review one without holding the technical qualification.
Writing a brief that gets a usable specialist report
Consultants answer the question they are asked. How to write a brief that names the decision, the standard, the survey season and the deliverable format.
Energy assessor accreditation for planning stage work
Nothing in planning requires an accredited energy assessor, but building control does. The gap between those positions is where schemes lose time and carbon percentages stop being achievable.
Checking an archaeological contractor before you appoint
The county archaeologist approves the written scheme of investigation, so who you appoint affects how fast that approval comes. Here is what to check before instructing anyone.
Who is competent to carry out a BS 4142 assessment
BS 4142 leans on the assessor's judgement at three points. Here is the competence, instrumentation and measurement record councils expect to see.
Arboriculturist qualifications for a BS 5837 survey
BS 5837 asks for an arboriculturist without naming a qualification. Here is what councils actually look for, and how to check the survey you have paid for.
Novating a consultant appointment to the contractor
Novation hands your consultant to the contractor. Here is how to protect condition discharge, keep rights over planning evidence and close the usual drafting gaps.
Wind microclimate assessment: who runs the model
Wind assessments for tall buildings are written by specialist wind engineers. Here is how tunnel testing compares with computational modelling, and what a reviewing officer checks first.
Who can prepare an overheating assessment to TM59
TM59 overheating assessments are judged on their assumptions, not their conclusions. What the methodology demands of a modeller, the inputs that decide pass or fail, and how the planning and Building Regulations routes differ.
Accredited laboratories for soil and water analysis
Contamination reports are rejected on the provenance of their numbers more often than on their conclusions. What accreditation covers, how to scope the analytical suite, and what to check on a certificate of analysis.
Specifying a topographical survey for a planning application
Most resurveys are caused by three omissions: an arbitrary datum, too small an extent, and missing invert levels. Here is how to write the brief once and get a survey that serves the whole application.
Odour assessment competence and olfactometry explained
Odour assessment uses a human panel, not an instrument. Here is how sampling and olfactometry work, what dispersion modelling adds, and how to judge whether the person writing your report is competent to do it.
Party wall surveyors and planning: different roles
Planning permission decides whether development is acceptable. The Party Wall etc. Act 1996 decides whether you may build against or excavate near a neighbour structure. Neither replaces the other.
Conflicts of interest for planning consultants
A conflict is manageable if you spot it, disclose it in writing and obtain informed consent before working. Some conflicts cannot be consented away at all.
Statutory declarations for a lawful development certificate
A section 191 application is won on evidence, and the statutory declaration is its spine. Who may administer one, the detail that makes it useful, and the documents that should sit behind it.
Signing off a draft: the reviewer's declaration
A signature on a report you did not write carries the same weight as one on a report you did. How to classify inputs, limit scope honestly, and know when further survey must come before sign-off.
What a professional review of a draft report covers
Signing a review transfers the reader's reliance from the drafter to you. What a review instruction should cover, how to record it, and when to decline.
Checking professional indemnity cover before instructing
Professional indemnity cover is the ceiling on what you can recover from a consultant. How to read the certificate, why run-off matters, and what reliance letters actually give you.
Great crested newt eDNA: laboratory and licence rules
An eDNA result only counts if it was sampled between 15 April and 30 June by the approved method and analysed by a laboratory working to the protocol Natural England accepts.
Agricultural Land Classification and who can survey it
The line between grade 3a and grade 3b is the line between best and most versatile land and ordinary farmland. A published provisional map is not good enough to settle it.
Lighting competence and ILP GN01 in planning applications
Lighting objections are usually won or lost on two things: the environmental zone the site sits in, and whether the isolux plot actually shows the boundary.
IAQM competence for air quality and construction dust
Air quality assessments are judged on method and on the person who applied it. Knowing what the guidance expects of an assessor tells you whether the report you have paid for will survive consultation.
Independent viability review and RICS standards
An independent viability review is a challenge, not a second opinion. This covers the objectivity duty, the order a reviewer tests inputs in, publication expectations and review mechanisms.
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