PlanScope Blog – Page 114
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 114
9440 articlesWhen a preliminary appraisal becomes an impact assessment
The appraisal is a constraints document and the assessment judges effects on important features. Which triggers force escalation, how the survey calendar differs, and how to write the brief.
Reviewing a hydraulic modelling report line by line
A model is a set of assumptions with arithmetic attached. How to check model choice, topography, boundary conditions, sensitivity testing and results presentation before relying on the output.
Walkthrough: a nursery in a former bank branch
Moving from Class E(c) to Class E(f) is not development, so the application was about the rear yard, the fencing and the alterations. How the highway objection was answered and which conditions followed.
Nutrient and water neutrality by catchment and scale
There is no de minimis for nutrient neutrality. How to check whether a catchment is affected, how the budget is calculated, and how the mitigation options change with scheme size.
Build to rent in London and the 15 year covenant
Policy H11 of the London Plan treats build to rent as a package, not a tenure label. The criteria, the covenant and clawback drafting, discounted market rent, and how the viability appraisal differs.
Brick bond patterns on a rear extension
The outer leaf of a cavity wall is half a brick thick, so there is nowhere for a header to go. How snapped headers work, where officers notice the bond, and what to put on the drawings.
The agent of change principle in planning decisions
Build next to an established venue or business and the new development carries the mitigation cost. How the principle is applied, the measures authorities expect, and the four limits it runs into.
Reflectance, transmittance and maintenance assumptions
Three appendix assumptions decide more daylight results than the massing does. The conventional values for reflectance, transmittance and maintenance, and the checks that reveal an optimistic model.
Overheating risk in a listed building retrofit
Insulating and draught sealing a historic building reduces winter heat loss and raises summer temperatures. The measures that are usually acceptable, the glazing decisions, and the evidence a conservation officer expects.
Scaffolding and crane oversail over a protected tree
Temporary works are controlled by the arboricultural condition on your permission. What consent scaffold pruning needs, how to protect the ground beneath a scaffold base, and what settles a crane position.
Odour and noise from a crematorium or similar facility
Emissions from cremators sit with the environmental permitting regime, while planning controls location, stack height, traffic and plant noise. What the application has to evidence, and which conditions to expect.
Pooling restrictions and clawback in planning obligations
Regulation 123 and the five obligation pooling cap went in September 2019. What remains is the statutory test in regulation 122, the infrastructure funding statement, and careful drafting against duplication.
Thatch, lime and traditional materials in consent decisions
Material choice decides listed building consent applications more often than design does. Lime against cement, thatch types and ridges, timber and glass specification, and the evidence conservation officers accept.
Programming a scheme around bat survey seasons
A preliminary roost assessment can be done in any month, but emergence and re-entry surveys are limited to the maternity season. Survey effort by roost potential, and how to keep the rest of the scheme moving.
Flood response plans secured by planning condition
Flood response plans deal with residual risk after the mitigation is built. The contents that get approved first time, how trigger levels tie to flood warnings, and whether a condition or an obligation should secure it.
Walkthrough: a cafe to a micro brewery taproom
Drinking establishments left the use classes system in 2020, so there is no permitted change from a Class E cafe to a taproom. An illustrative walkthrough of the application, the objections and the conditions.
Phasing conditions and how they work at each scale
A phasing condition becomes the reference point for every trigger in the permission and the section 106 agreement. What to draw, how occupation triggers work, and how the levy applies phase by phase.
The fast track route for affordable housing in London
The London Plan threshold approach lets schemes at 35 per cent affordable housing, or 50 per cent on public and industrial land, avoid a viability assessment and review mechanisms. The conditions, and where fast track claims fail.
Matching brick on a 1930s semi extension
Interwar houses used imperial bricks around 68 to 73 mm high, so a standard modern facing will not course with the old wall. What to measure, what to specify and what the council needs to approve the samples.
What counts as a material consideration in planning
Materiality and weight are two different questions. This sets out the legal test under section 70 of the 1990 Act, the matters officers treat as material, and the ones they must ignore.
Sustainability statements for a change of use
With no new floorspace, policy reaches water efficiency, charge points, cycle and waste storage and anything you are proposing anyway. On a prior approval route it may not reach energy at all.
Verifying a plant noise limit after installation
Verification conditions are discharged by measurement in the state the condition describes. Defrost cycles, residual sound and the control settings decide most outcomes.
Trees on a boundary: ownership, severance and consent
A tree belongs to whoever owns the ground its trunk stands on, and a trunk crossing the boundary is jointly owned. Consent from the council is not consent from the owner.
Indexation of section 106 contributions and which index applies
The index family and the base date decide how far an indexed contribution moves. Name the series exactly, set the base date to the prices the figure is expressed in, and recalculate every demand.
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