Professionals and Qualifications – Page 14
Who is competent to prepare or sign off each report, and how to brief and check them.
Professionals and Qualifications articles – page 14
372 articlesChecking an ecologist's licence before you appoint them
Protected species licences are personal, species-specific and time-limited. Ten minutes of checking protects the one thing that cannot be fixed later.
Signing off an AI-assisted draft: what you take on
Putting your name to a report you did not write transfers the liability to you. Here is how to scope the review, what to check first, and what to record.
Conflicts of interest when consultants advise both sides
The professional codes turn on identifying a conflict early and disclosing it. The harder judgement is when informed consent cures the problem and when nothing does.
Commissioning a peer review of a specialist planning report
A peer review is not a proofread. It tests whether the method was followed, whether the data supports the conclusion, and whether the report would survive cross examination.
Air quality assessment authors and IAQM competence
No statute reserves air quality assessment to a licensed profession. Councils judge the author on method, membership and whether the dispersion model was verified against real monitoring.
Who can prepare an LVIA and what CMLI actually means
There is no statutory licence to write a landscape and visual impact assessment. Competence is judged on GLVIA3 method, membership grade and the quality of the visual evidence.
Who should prepare a daylight and sunlight assessment
Anyone can write a daylight report. What separates a defensible assessment from a weak one is the model, the baseline and whether the author will stand behind it at inquiry.
Protected species licence classes and what each permits
A survey licence permits looking, a mitigation licence permits doing. Individual, class and organisational licences, the three statutory tests, and the six checks a reviewer should run.
How to check a planning consultant's registration and record
Anyone can call themselves a planning consultant. How to check RTPI, RICS and Architects Registration Board entries, read their record on your council's register, and set the scope in writing.
Writing a survey brief that makes fees comparable
Survey quotes differ mostly on scope, not margin. A one page brief naming BS 5837, CIEEM guidance or BS 4142, the deliverable format and the exclusions list makes the numbers line up.
What chartered status means when appointing a planning agent
Anyone can call themselves a planning consultant. What chartered membership actually requires, when it is worth paying for, and the six questions to ask first.
Registered arboricultural consultants and BS 5837 competence
Councils want a tree report written to BS 5837 by someone accountable for it. How to tell a contractor from a consultant, and what to check before instructing.
Transport planner credentials a highway authority accepts
No statutory qualification governs who writes a transport assessment. What highway officers actually look for in the author, the method and the agreed scope.
Suitably qualified contaminated land report authors
There is no statutory register of contaminated land assessors, so councils look for recognised markers. What competence means under BS 10175 and LCRM, and how to check it before you commission.
When a council can require a named professional
Some reports legally need a licensed or competent author. Others carry only a local preference dressed up as a requirement. Where the line sits, and how to argue it.
Independence and conflicts of interest in viability review
Viability turns on judgements that cannot be re-run, which is why the reviewer's independence matters more here than in any other planning discipline.
Daylight consultants: what competence looks like
Neighbour testing and climate-based internal daylight modelling are two disciplines, not one. What competence looks like, and the assumptions that decide the result.
Air quality assessment authors and IAQM expectations
Planning law names no qualification for an air quality author, so councils judge the method instead. What to ask about modelling, verification and dust assessment.
Lighting assessment competence and the ILP guidance notes
Lighting design is not a protected title, so the quality of an obtrusive light assessment varies widely. The environmental zone and the photometric data are where reviewers should start.
Who can prepare a heritage statement and when more is needed
A heritage statement has to describe significance and assess the effect of the proposal on it. For modest works an informed owner can do that. For others the council will expect a specialist.
What a professional sign-off commits the signatory to
A reviewer who signs a planning report is taken to stand behind its conclusions. The declaration is where scope, reliance and limitations get fixed, or left dangerously vague.
Checking a technical report before it is submitted
Most defects in a technical report are found in twenty minutes by someone who reads the conclusion before the summary. Here is the order to read in and what to send back.
Writing a scope of works that gets the report you need
A scope of works that names the deliverable, the standard, the revision rounds and the exclusions makes fee proposals comparable. Here is how to write one and how to normalise the quotations that come back.
Who can produce a whole life carbon assessment
Whole life carbon assessment has no licensing regime, so the report itself has to demonstrate competence. Here is what the RICS methodology requires, why the quantities matter most, and how to review an assessment for scope gaps.
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