Telling a templated planning statement from a real one

A templated planning statement is identifiable in under a minute, and case officers do it without thinking about it. They read the site description, then the policy section, and ask one question: could this paragraph have been written about any site in the district? If the answer is yes for more than two or three paragraphs, the document stops being evidence and becomes packaging.

That judgement is not about prose quality. A plainly written statement full of levels, distances and policy numbers applied to facts beats a polished one that says nothing specific. The officer is reading for material considerations, not for style.

What a case officer checks in the first minute

Four things, in roughly this order.

Whether the site description matches the site. Officers know their patch, and they have the aerial photography and the street view open. A description that calls a site "within a predominantly residential area" when it adjoins a working garage, or omits the two-metre level drop across the rear boundary, tells them the author has not been there.

Whether the policy list is the right list. Citing the authority's current adopted plan policies, by number and with the correct subject matter, is the quickest way to establish that the author did the work. Citing a superseded core strategy policy or a generic reference to sustainable development does the opposite.

Whether the document engages with the constraints the council's own mapping shows. If the site is in a conservation area, within the root protection area of a protected tree, in an article 4 area or in Flood Zone 2, and the statement does not mention it, the officer now has to establish those facts themselves and will say so in the report.

Whether the harm is addressed. Every application has at least one point against it. A statement that identifies the objection and answers it is read as credible. A statement that pretends there is no issue invites the officer to find it and resolve it against you.

The signals of a template

These are the markers that get a document skimmed rather than read.

• A site description with no numbers in it. No site area, no levels, no distances to boundaries or neighbouring windows, no orientation.
• Policy recited rather than applied. A block quotation of a policy followed by a sentence asserting compliance, with nothing in between connecting the policy test to the facts of this site.
• Constraints listed but not addressed. A paragraph noting that the site lies within a conservation area, followed by nothing about character, materials or significance.
• No planning history. Previous applications on the site or next door are the most useful material consideration available and they are free to look up.
• No reference to pre-application advice, by date and reference, where it was obtained.
• No reference to the consultation responses where the application is a resubmission, or to the previous refusal reasons where it follows one.
• Drawing numbers absent from the text. A statement that never cross-refers to a drawing has not been written alongside the drawings.
• Identical phrasing across the same agent's submissions, which officers notice because they read several a month from the same practices.
• A design section that describes the proposal rather than justifying it. Describing a scheme as having a pitched roof in matching materials is a description; explaining why a hipped roof was chosen over a gable because the neighbouring pair are hipped and the ridge line steps down is justification.

One template signal is forgivable. Five means the document is not doing its job, and an officer with 40 live applications will give it the weight it has earned.

What site specificity reads like

Specificity is almost always numeric or named.

On amenity: "The proposed rear elevation sits 10.8 metres from the rear elevation of number 14 and 1.2 metres from the shared boundary. The nearest first-floor window in number 14 is a bathroom window, obscure glazed, shown on the survey at a cill height of 1.6 metres. A 45-degree line taken from the centre of the nearest habitable room window at number 14 is not breached, as shown on drawing 104."

On design: "The host dwelling is one of a pair of 1930s semi-detached houses with a plain clay tile roof, red stock brick and a shallow bay to the front. The extension uses a reclaimed stock brick to match the rear elevation rather than the front, which was rendered in the 1980s, and the fenestration follows the existing vertical proportion."

On policy: "Policy DM14 requires rear extensions not to project more than three metres beyond the original rear wall of a semi-detached dwelling where there is a first-floor element. The proposal projects 2.7 metres at first floor and 4.0 metres at ground floor, so the first-floor element complies and the ground-floor element is assessed under criterion (c), which permits greater projection where the relationship with the adjoining property is acceptable."

Notice what is happening in each. A measurement, a source for it, and a consequence. The officer can check every sentence against a drawing.

The paragraphs that must never generalise

Six sections carry the weight, and a template in any of them is expensive.

The site description. This is the factual foundation for everything else, and an error here undermines the rest. Include site area, boundaries and their treatment, levels, orientation, existing use, surfacing, trees, access and the immediate context building by building.

The planning history. List the application references, dates and decisions for the site and for directly comparable neighbouring schemes, and say what each one establishes.

The policy framework. Cite the adopted plan by name and date, the policy numbers with their titles, any made neighbourhood plan, the relevant supplementary guidance, and the edition of the National Planning Policy Framework.

The amenity assessment. Distances, window positions, levels and the authority's own test, whether that is a 45-degree line, a 25-degree line or a daylight method.

The design justification. Why these materials, this form, this scale, in relation to named adjacent buildings.

Heritage significance, where relevant. What the asset is, what makes it significant, and what the effect of the proposal on that significance is. A Heritage Statement that describes the building without assessing significance will be returned, because significance is the thing the statutory test turns on.

Everything else, including the procedural sections and the standard content on sustainability, can reasonably be consistent between applications.

A before and after, worked through

This example is illustrative. Take a two-storey side extension to a semi-detached house in a suburban street.

The template version reads: "The site is located within a sustainable residential area with good access to local services. The proposed extension has been designed to be sympathetic to the character and appearance of the host dwelling and the surrounding area. It would not result in any adverse impact on the amenity of neighbouring occupiers. The proposal therefore accords with the development plan and the National Planning Policy Framework."

Four sentences, no facts, and nothing an officer can rely on in a report.

The site-specific version reads: "The application site is a 1960s semi-detached house of 0.04 hectares on the north side of the street, with a 3.2 metre side garden to the east and a detached garage set back 1.0 metre from the boundary with number 23. Ground levels fall 0.6 metres from front to rear. The proposal replaces the garage with a two-storey extension set in 0.9 metres from the boundary and set back 1.5 metres from the front elevation, with the eaves held 0.3 metres below those of the host dwelling. Number 23 has no side-facing habitable room windows, confirmed by the survey on drawing 103. The 1.5 metre front setback and subordinate eaves respond to the design guide's requirement that side extensions read as subordinate, at section 4.3 of the authority's householder design guide."

The second version is longer and more work. It is also the version the officer can lift straight into the report, which is the whole point.

Turning a draft into a site document

An AI-assisted draft gives you a correct structure, the right policy framework and a document that will not miss a required section. What it cannot do is visit the site, and a good draft says so by flagging the facts it does not have rather than inventing them. Drafts produced by PlanScope insert a marker wherever site data is missing for exactly that reason, and that marker list is the editing plan. The wider pattern is that drafts get structure right and evidence wrong, and the fix is the same every time.

Seven moves, in order.

1. Resolve every missing-fact marker from the survey, the drawings and your site notes. Nothing goes out with one left in.
2. Replace every adjective of degree with a number. "Close to", "modest", "substantial" and "ample" all become measurements.
3. Verify each policy citation against the adopted plan, including the adoption date and the policy title.
4. Add the planning history for the site and the two or three most comparable neighbouring decisions.
5. Insert drawing cross-references in each factual assertion, so that the statement and the drawings are one document.
6. Write one paragraph that names the principal objection to the scheme and answers it on the facts.
7. Read the site description aloud against your site photographs. Anything you cannot see in a photograph is either wrong or needs checking.

Where the judgement is architectural rather than factual, no amount of editing substitutes for having stood on the site, which is the argument made at more length in where site judgement cannot be drafted.

A short self-assessment

Run these five questions over the finished document before it goes to the portal.

Could any paragraph be moved to a different application in the same district without alteration? If so, rewrite it or delete it.

How many measurements appear in the site description and the amenity section? Fewer than six on a householder scheme is thin.

Does every policy citation name the plan and its date?

Is there a sentence that concedes something? A statement with no concession reads as advocacy rather than assessment, and officers discount it accordingly.

Would a reader who had never seen the site be able to draw its plan from the description? That is the real test, and it is the one a Design and Access Statement and a Planning Statement both have to pass.

This is general guidance rather than legal advice, so check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.