PlanScope Blog – Page 100
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 100
9467 articlesConfidence statements in an agricultural land classification
A grade without a confidence statement is an assertion. What survey density, soil pits and wetness class assignment do to the 3a and 3b boundary, and how to report it.
Flow control devices and choosing between them
The flow control is what makes a discharge rate real. How head, blockage risk and adoption route decide between a vortex unit, an orifice plate and a throttle pipe.
Tree Preservation Orders: checking and the exemptions
Dead, dying and dangerous no longer describes the law. What the 2012 Regulations actually exempt, the notice each exemption needs, and the replanting duty that survives a lawful removal.
Permitted development does not excuse a wildlife offence
Converting a loft under permitted development is lawful development and can still be a criminal offence if bats are roosting. What to check before work starts, and what to do on discovery.
Acoustic consultants: membership, methods and competence
Nobody regulates the title acoustician, so the weight a council gives your noise report depends on demonstrable competence. What to check before you appoint, and how to read a draft for weak points.
Construction management plan triggers by scheme scale
A construction management plan is secured by condition, not by statute. Here is the pattern of what authorities ask for at each scheme scale, and how to word the pre-commencement condition.
Section by section outline for a householder planning statement
Officers read householder statements looking for specific answers in a predictable order. This outline gives them in that order, with the numbers and policy tests a case officer has to check.
What a Transport Assessment costs and why it varies
Two quotes for the same 60 unit scheme can differ by a multiple because nobody agreed a scope. Here is what actually sets a Transport Assessment fee, and how to get comparable prices.
Habitat bank units or on site habitat creation
Off site units leave your layout alone but lose value to the metric's spatial risk multiplier. On site creation keeps full unit value and the 30 year liability. How to decide, and how to mix the two.
Putting a gym in a former retail unit on a high street
Shop to gym is normally a change within Class E and needs no application. The planning risk sits in conditions, Article 4 directions, plant and the impact noise from dropped free weights.
Document bundle for a self-contained annexe in a garden
Whether a garden annexe is ancillary accommodation or a new dwelling decides the application type, the drawings and the fee. Here is the evidence that settles it and the document pack that follows.
Assumptions registers in a basement impact assessment
A basement impact assessment is written before anyone has dug on the party line. The assumptions register is where you make the inputs testable, and where you say what gets revisited at detailed design.
Documents for a retail unit above the impact threshold
The sequential test has no threshold. The impact assessment has one, set locally or defaulting to 2,500 square metres. Here is what each document has to contain.
Survey effort tables in an archaeological field evaluation
Curators read the effort table before anything else. It tells them how much of the site was examined and how much was not, which is what the recommendation has to follow from.
A new access onto a trunk road or motorway slip
National Highways can stop a decision dead with a holding direction, and there is nothing to appeal. Here is the policy position and how to get an objection lifted.
Documents for a new access onto a classified road
There is no permitted development route onto an A, B or C road. Here is the evidence the highway authority expects, and the separate consents that follow permission.
A swimming pool in the garden of a listed house
A new open-air pool is not part of the listed building, so consent often is not needed for the pool. It is needed the moment the works touch a pre-1948 wall or outbuilding.
Calculation appendices in a whole life carbon assessment
An appendix exists so a reviewer can trace any headline number back to a quantity, a factor and a stated assumption. Here is what to include and in what format.
Article 2(3) land: which designations remove rights
Five designations make a site article 2(3) land under the GPDO. Side extensions and rear dormers go, single storey rear extensions and rooflights stay.
Noise Important Areas and what they signal
Noise Important Areas come from national modelling, not from a planning designation. They are a prompt to measure, and a weak basis for refusing anything.
Refuse and recycling storage requirements by scheme size
Bin stores are set by the waste team, not the local plan. Here is the capacity calculation, the two carry distances that matter, and how to get a layout agreed before submission.
Briefing an ecologist: the scope of works to send
Three ecologists will only quote on the same basis if you tell them the same things. Here is the page and a half that gets you comparable prices and a usable programme.
Part S charge points or a planning condition
Approved Document S already requires a charge point per new dwelling with parking. Here is where a planning condition still has work to do, and where it is duplication.
A new farm track and hardstanding on a holding
A private way on an agricultural unit can be permitted development, subject to size, agricultural necessity and prior notification. Here is what the notification should contain.
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