PlanScope Blog – Page 116
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 116
9436 articlesBasement drainage, anti-flooding devices and pumping
A basement drains below the level of the sewer, so surcharge pushes water back up the pipe. Pumped systems, anti-flood loops and the residual risk when the power goes.
Retirement villages and the C2 to C3 boundary
Extra care and retirement village schemes sit on the boundary between Class C2 and Class C3. The care model decides it, and the classification decides the obligations.
Fifty dwellings: community involvement and transport
Fifty dwellings is convention rather than statute. It is where most authorities expect a transport assessment, a full travel plan and evidence of consultation before submission.
Air quality neutral and air quality positive in London
Air quality neutral is a benchmark calculation for building and transport emissions. Air quality positive is a design argument about layout, uses and movement. London schemes often need both.
Domestic solar panels and the Class A Part 14 limits
Roof-mounted solar on a house is usually permitted development, including in conservation areas. The traps are flat roofs, walls fronting a highway and listed buildings.
Low frequency noise and the limits of standard metrics
A-weighting discards about 26 dB at 63 Hz, so plant can pass a rating level assessment and still produce a hum complaint. What to measure instead, and which criteria to report.
Specifying crown works correctly in a tree application
Applications to work on protected trees fail on wording more often than on arboriculture. Use the standard operations, give finished dimensions and state the reason for each cut.
Viability evidence at the plan making stage
Whole plan viability testing decides what policy a scheme can be asked to carry. Applications that comply with an up-to-date plan are assumed viable, which changes where the argument happens.
Shopfront alterations in a conservation area
A shopfront refit in a conservation area can involve planning permission, advertisement consent and listed building consent. The refusals turn on fascia depth, stallrisers and shutters.
Natural England discretionary advice and when to buy it
Natural England's chargeable advice service earns its fee on bespoke licences, designated sites and Habitats Regulations screening. On conventional schemes the free standing advice does the same job.
Drainage conditions: what a discharge submission needs
Surface water drainage conditions are returned for completeness more often than for engineering. Here is the package that gets approved first time, and the reasons submissions come back.
Last mile parcel depots in urban locations
Last mile parcel depots sit in Class B8 yet behave nothing like bulk warehousing. Trip generation, pre-dawn van departures and yard noise decide these applications.
Scaffolding, hoardings and the highway licence
Planning permission does not let you stand a scaffold on the footway. Highway licences under the Highways Act 1980 run on a separate track, with their own applicants, timescales and lead times.
Crossing ten dwellings: what major status changes
Ten dwellings turns a minor application into major development. The determination period, publicity rules, fee band, validation list and route to decision all change at that point.
Urban greening and net gain on the same London site
A London major scheme has to score an urban greening factor and show a 10 per cent biodiversity uplift. The two are measured differently, and a planting plan tuned to one can fail the other.
Loft conversions with no external change to the house
Internal alterations are outside the planning system altogether. The question is what happens the moment you cut an opening in the roof.
Fire safety evidence on a London planning application
A six-storey London block needs fire safety evidence even though the national trigger is not met. Access, water supply and evacuation lifts are the planning-critical parts.
Fabric energy efficiency and the fabric first argument
A dwelling must beat its fabric target as well as its carbon and primary energy targets, and no amount of photovoltaics will help. Junctions and airtightness are where the figure moves.
Acoustic design of balconies and winter gardens
Balcony type does more for the acoustic result than any finish applied later. Decide it with the noise model, not after it.
Visibility splays and protected trees: resolving the conflict
A slender stem inside a visibility splay can often be accepted. A low crown across it cannot. The difference decides whether the tree survives the access design.
Open book viability and what can properly be redacted
Publication is the default, and the exceptions are about individual inputs rather than whole documents. Write the appraisal for a public audience from the first draft.
Burials on a development site: consents, cost and programme
A former burial ground is an archaeological risk measured in seasons rather than weeks. The licence, the excavation and the reburial all sit on the critical path.
Ecology and demolition: sequencing surveys before the machines
Stripping a roof is the moment the offence happens. Surveys, licence, soft strip and a stop works protocol have to be sequenced before the machines arrive.
Flood risk activity permits and the 8 metre byelaw distance
A permit under the Environmental Permitting Regulations 2016 is a separate consent from planning permission, and the 8 metre line should shape the layout from the first sketch.
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