PlanScope Blog – Page 167
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 167
9343 articlesThe 50 per cent curtilage rule for garden outbuildings
Class E limits buildings, enclosures and containers in a garden to half the curtilage once the original house is deducted. Extensions count. Driveways do not. Here is how to do the sum.
Combined heat and power after the Part L 2021 uplift
Gas combined heat and power no longer displaces high-carbon grid electricity, so it tends to raise regulated emissions on new residential schemes. Here is where it still has a case and how to evidence it.
Which rainfall dataset to cite in a drainage calculation
Name the rainfall model, the version, the grid reference and the extraction date. Here is how the Flood Estimation Handbook revisions differ, why storm profiles change the answer, and what a drainage reviewer checks first.
Scheduled monument consent or planning permission
Scheduled monument consent comes from the Secretary of State under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979. Planning permission comes from the council. Neither authorises what the other controls.
Reports for an industrial extension inside an AQMA
An AQMA adds an air quality assessment, dust controls and lorry routing evidence to the usual industrial pack. Here is what a council will expect and where applications in these areas tend to fail.
Choosing a historic building recording level, 1 to 4
Recording levels 1 to 4 are set by the local planning authority, usually through a pre-commencement condition. Here is how the level should follow the loss, and what a reviewer checks before signing a draft.
Evacuation alert systems in blocks of flats explained
An evacuation alert system lets the fire service warn residents floor by floor in a block of flats. Here is where one is expected, how it differs from a fire alarm, and what it means for the core layout you take through planning.
Soil resource and grading in an agricultural land assessment
Grades 1, 2 and 3a are protected and 3b is not, and the published provisional maps show grade 3 undivided. Most ALC work on an application exists to settle that one division by field survey.
Self-build exemption from the community levy
The relief depends on a sequence of forms filed in a particular order, with the last one filed after the house is finished. The commonest failure is not a missing qualification, it is starting work a week early.
Which ecology licence covers which species and activity
A survey licence lets an ecologist look. A class licence lets a registered person work without applying each time. A mitigation licence permits works that would otherwise be an offence.
Garden offices and the separate planning unit problem
The size limits are easy to check. The real risk is that a lawful garden building gradually becomes a separate planning unit, and nobody notices until the house is being sold.
Solar thermal against photovoltaic in an energy strategy
Solar thermal only offsets hot water, which is modest and seasonally mismatched in modern dwellings. The exception is buildings with large, steady hot water loads, and that is the case worth arguing properly.
Outfall design, bank stability and scour protection
A surface water outfall is where a drainage strategy either works or quietly fails. Four things have to be settled together: invert level, scour protection, bank stability and maintenance.
Works below mean high water and the marine licence
Planning runs seaward to low water and marine licensing runs landward to mean high water springs, so the intertidal zone sits in both. Neither consent authorises what the other covers.
Rural broadband and telecoms masts under Part 16
Part 16 gives code operators permitted development rights, so the planning process for most rural masts is a siting and appearance test. Need, competition and health are outside it.
BS 4142 rating level or BS 8233 internal guideline values
BS 4142 produces a relative answer about an industrial or commercial source. BS 8233 sets absolute internal targets for dwellings. Most schemes beside a commercial neighbour need both, for different parts of the report.
Reports for a self-build plot on a serviced site
The site-wide permission normally carries the ecology, flood risk and transport evidence. What is left is a design code compliance case and two exemptions that are easy to lose.
Screening in an equalities impact assessment
Screening is the decision about whether a full assessment is needed, not a shorter version of one. The duty sits on the council, and that changes how the applicant's document should be written.
Deeds of variation under section 106A
Section 106A gives two routes to changing a planning obligation. Nearly all variation happens by agreement, and knowing the statutory route exists is what changes the negotiation.
Class consents for works to a scheduled monument
Some works to a scheduled monument are already consented by the Ancient Monuments (Class Consents) Order 1994. The agricultural class is the one that matters on a farm, and it is narrower than most owners assume.
Nutrient neutrality: what a scheme has to demonstrate
Nutrient neutrality means showing a scheme adds no net nitrogen or phosphorus load. The budget, the mitigation and the securing mechanism are three separate pieces of work, and each has its own traps.
Landscape professionals and competence for a visual assessment
Councils rarely impose a written competence requirement for landscape and visual work. They apply one anyway, through the weight they give the document. Here is what to buy and how to check you got it.
Roof extensions and the elevation fronting a highway
A front dormer is caught only where the roof slope both forms the principal elevation and fronts a highway. Both limbs have to be met, and on corner plots and footpath frontages the answer is often not the obvious one.
BREEAM energy credits a planning condition can secure
A condition requiring a BREEAM rating looks strong and is usually the weakest instrument available. The credits worth conditioning are the ones fixed by a calculation, a study or a specification.
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