PlanScope Blog – Page 158
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 158
9360 articlesTree establishment and defects periods in a condition
A five year tree replacement condition is not a defects period. How to fix the trigger date, keep species substitution open, and allocate the aftercare cost before it surprises you.
Cast iron rainwater goods and like for like repair
Repairing cast iron gutters in the same material rarely needs consent. Swapping them for plastic almost always does. How to repair, match profiles and make the case for aluminium.
Walkthrough: rural worker's dwelling on a smallholding
An illustrative walkthrough of an application for a rural worker's dwelling on a 14 hectare holding, from the labour requirement assessment to the agricultural occupancy condition.
The point at which a travel plan replaces a travel statement
A travel plan statement is a one off cost. A full travel plan is a five year monitoring obligation. Where the threshold sits, what monitoring involves, and what to resist in the drafting.
Recommending further survey in an ecological appraisal
The further survey section of a Preliminary Ecological Appraisal decides your programme. How suitability scoring drives survey effort, which seasons bind, and what a council can condition.
Annexes and the single planning unit question
An annexe needs permission when it creates a separate dwelling. The planning unit factors officers weigh, why Class E rarely covers a garden annexe, and the conditions to expect.
Piling methods beside sensitive neighbours
Piling method is a planning issue. How to predict noise and vibration to BS 5228, set trigger levels people will accept, and use section 61 prior consent to lock in hours and methods.
Plant noise limits expressed as a condition
A plant noise condition needs a place, a period and a metric. How to convert a relative limit into a number, cover cumulative plant, and keep defrost cycles out of breach.
Retaining a tree above a basement or piled foundation
Retaining a tree above a basement starts with the root protection area, not the structural grid. Root investigation, pile offsets, cantilevered slabs and the groundwater effects that show up years later.
Historic paint analysis and specifying redecoration
Paint analysis gives you layers, not appearances. How to sample a listed interior, read a stratigraphy honestly, and specify a redecoration that will not blister off the lime plaster.
Walkthrough: rooftop plant enclosure on an office building
An illustrative walkthrough of replacing chillers and air handling units on an office roof, from the section 55 question through BS 4142 noise assessment to the commissioning condition.
When a scheme becomes referable to the Mayor of London
More than 150 homes makes a London scheme referable, and floorspace, height and Metropolitan Open Land triggers catch others. Here is what Stage 1 and Stage 2 actually involve.
The access and visibility section of a Transport Statement
The access section of a Transport Statement lives or dies on the speed survey. Here is how to set X and Y distances, show gradients and turning, and deal with splays over land you do not own.
Rear dormers on a semi detached house: the rules
A rear dormer on a semi detached house usually falls under Class B permitted development, but only if it stays below the ridge, keeps 0.2 metres back from the eaves and adds no more than 50 cubic metres.
Validation monitoring conditions for noise and air quality
Post-completion testing conditions test outcomes rather than intentions, which makes them valuable and easy to draft badly. Eight elements make one enforceable.
Walkthrough: replacement dwelling in the Green Belt
An illustrative walkthrough of a Green Belt replacement dwelling, from establishing the lawful baseline and the volume comparison to openness, bats and the conditions to expect.
Phasing a scheme and when each threshold bites
Major status and EIA screening look at the whole project. Levy liability, gain plans and most conditions can work phase by phase, but only if the permission is drafted for it.
Obscure glazing conditions on side facing windows
Obscure glass alone does not satisfy the condition. The window also has to be fixed shut below 1.7 metres, and an open casement overlooks just as well as a clear one.
Railway vibration and the thresholds that apply
Groundborne vibration is felt and reradiated noise is heard, and they need separate assessment. Base isolation is a concept design decision, not a late addition.
Transplanting a mature tree as mitigation
Tree officers read most transplant offers as felling applications with extra steps. What changes that is a survival assessment, a real preparation programme and a replacement obligation.
Grade I and II star cases and the notification duty
A higher grade listed building consent is more than a harder argument. Notification to Historic England, the amenity societies and sometimes the Secretary of State changes the programme.
Site area: what to include inside the red line
Too tight and the access works are unauthorised. Too loose and you have bought major status, a flood risk assessment and a bigger biodiversity obligation.
Asbestos surveys before demolition and what conditions cover
Regulation 5 already requires an intrusive survey before demolition. A condition restating it fails the tests for planning conditions, while dust, hours and sequencing are fair game.
Acoustic glazing, ventilation and the overheating conflict
On a noisy site the acoustician assumes windows shut and the overheating modeller assumes them open. Both reports pass and the building fails. One strategy, issued first, prevents it.
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