PlanScope Blog – Page 130
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 130
9410 articlesDaylight evidence for a roof extension on a terrace
Roof extensions sit above the windows they are accused of harming. The cases that matter are dormer cheeks near the party line, neighbouring rooflights and stepped terraces.
Heat pump evidence for a planning energy statement
Most domestic heat pumps need no application. The condition that decides it is the MCS noise standard, calculated at 1 metre from a neighbouring habitable room window.
A bakery with a shop front: extraction and early hours
Nobody objects to the smell of bread. They object to an extract fan at 04:00 and a flour tanker before dawn, which is why the flue and the hours decide a bakery application.
A coffee roastery on a mixed use street
Class E(g)(iii) covers an industrial process that can run in a residential area without detriment to amenity. For a roastery, the afterburner and the flue decide whether that test is met.
Heritage consultant competence and the significance test
No rule says who may write a heritage statement. Advice Note 12 says what one should contain, and the gap between the two is where most assessments fail.
Appointing a party wall surveyor: what the Act requires
An appointment under section 10 must be in writing and cannot be rescinded, and the surveyor's duty is to the Act rather than to the owner paying the fee.
Reading a section 106 agreement as a resident
The schedules at the back of a section 106 deed carry the promises, and the trigger wording decides when they fall due. A play area tied to the final dwelling can wait a decade lawfully.
Class MA or Class M: two routes to residential
Both classes turn commercial floorspace into housing through prior approval, but only Class M carries the building works, and only Class MA needs two years of qualifying use.
When a Tree Preservation Order and a listed building meet
Listed building consent does not authorise work to a protected tree. Only a full planning permission can, and only where the tree work is necessary to implement it.
Householder appeal or full planning appeal: which route
A householder refusal must be appealed within 12 weeks, on the papers the council already had. The general written representations route gives six months and allows new evidence, and it is not available for householder decisions.
When flood zone 2 meets a conservation area
Raised floor levels, impermeable renders and external bunds are the standard answers to flood risk and the ones a conservation officer resists. Here is how to resolve both evidence bases in one submission.
Background sound level and why BS 4142 depends on it
BS 4142 measures nothing in absolute terms. It compares the rating level of plant noise against the background sound level, so the derivation of that LA90 figure decides the outcome.
Prior approval: what it is and what it is not
The General Permitted Development Order grants the permission; prior approval only settles a short list of specified details. Start work before the period expires and you lose the right altogether.
Which neighbours must be told about an application
No council has to write to every neighbour. For most applications a single site notice satisfies the publicity duty, and the definition of an adjoining owner is narrower than people expect.
Sequential test or exception test: which one applies
Raised floor levels answer the exception test, never the sequential test. Here is the order the two tests run in, which combinations trigger each, and the evidence they need.
Japanese knotweed and other invasive species on site
Having knotweed is not an offence; causing it to spread is. The survey boundary and the choice between herbicide treatment and excavation decide when you can start on site.
Material considerations: what counts and what does not
Anything relating to the use and development of land can be a material consideration. Loss of view and property value cannot, and being material says nothing about weight.
Deeds of variation to a section 106 and when they pay off
The legal fee is the easy number. The real cost of a deed of variation is the viability evidence, the delay, and what the authority asks for in return.
Reports for a former petrol filling station site
A former filling station is a contamination project with a planning application attached. The vapour risk to a sensitive end use shapes the layout, foundations and drainage.
Finance costs and the assumed debt structure in viability
Viability appraisals model finance rather than using the real facility. The rate, the fee schedule and the programme are the three assumptions a reviewer will test.
Licensing and planning are separate decisions
Licensing and planning run in parallel with different criteria, different objectors and different deadlines. A point made in the right language to each carries far more weight.
Who should write a transport assessment or statement
Competence for transport evidence is judged by the highway authority, not by a register. The scoping agreement tells you which skills the job actually needs.
Structural surveys for a scheme relying on retention
A survey supporting retention has to show the building can take the intervention you are drawing. Here is the scope, the limits of visual inspection and how it feeds the design case.
When a neighbour's tree is the cause of the shading
An easement of light can only be acquired against a building, so a shading tree gives you no enforceable right. The high hedges procedure is the one statutory route, and it excludes single trees.
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