PlanScope Blog – Page 170
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 170
9338 articlesRedundant farm buildings and the loss of employment test
Local plan rural policy usually prefers an employment use over housing, and asks you to prove the building has no economic future. Here is what that evidence looks like and where applications fall over.
Urban Greening Factor or biodiversity net gain units
One measures how much of your site is green and what kind of green. The other measures habitat value before and after, secured for 30 years. A London scheme has to satisfy both, and they do not reward the same design.
Reports for a single new dwelling in a garden plot
One house in a back garden is a minor full application, not a householder one. These are the documents councils actually ask for, and the two grounds that refuse most of these schemes.
National Highways or the local highway authority
National Highways covers motorways and trunk roads and can stop a permission being issued. The local highway authority holds the access and layout standards.
Sensitivity testing in a viability appraisal
The residual is a small difference between two large numbers, so small input changes swing it heavily. Sensitivity analysis is how an appraisal shows its working.
Agricultural ties secured by obligation, not condition
Removing an occupancy condition under section 73 does nothing to a section 106 tie. Here is how the two differ and how release under section 106A works.
Reports needed for half a hectare of greenfield land
Undisturbed ground brings a fuller ecology baseline, surviving archaeology, agricultural land questions and a drainage catchment with no existing system.
Curtilage listing and what it catches
Walls, gate piers, coach houses and even historic paving can be listed without appearing in the list entry, if they formed part of the land before 1 July 1948.
Farm campsites beyond the 28 day allowance
Part 4 lets you run a campsite for a limited number of days a year. Going beyond it means a full application, plus caravan site licensing where caravans are involved.
Ancillary use or a material change of use
An ancillary use is subordinate to the primary use of the planning unit. A material change of use is development. The line between them is fact and degree.
Reports needed for a scheme adjoining a railway
Noise and ground-borne vibration, the physical relationship with the operator's land, and where surface water goes decide a scheme adjoining an operational railway.
Maintenance and adoption in a drainage strategy
Adoption decides the design standard, the materials and the easements. Here is what undertakers and highway authorities take, and how to write the private fallback.
The archaeological watching brief explained
A watching brief is archaeological monitoring during groundworks under an approved written scheme of investigation, imposed where potential is low or uncertain.
Heat pump siting limits under Part 14 Class G
Class G permits most domestic air source heat pumps without an application, provided the planning standards noise test passes and the property is not listed.
Geocellular storage: silt, inspection and adoption
Silt is what kills a geocellular attenuation tank, and adoption is the question to settle before the layout is fixed. Here is the evidence a reviewer expects.
Owner assent for works on an SSSI under section 28E
Section 28E stops an owner or occupier carrying out any operation on the notified list without Natural England's written consent, and that includes ordinary farming work.
Grain stores and the Part 6 siting and design notification
Class A of Part 6 covers agricultural buildings on units of 5 hectares or more, but only after a notification of siting, design and external appearance is determined.
Sui generis use or a use inside Class E: what changes
A use inside Class E can change to any other Class E use without permission. A sui generis use such as a hot food takeaway or a pub cannot.
Documents for a nursery change of use in a housing street
Two issues decide a nursery application in a residential street: drop-off and collection parking, and noise from outdoor play. Here is the evidence each one needs.
Exceedance flow routing in a drainage strategy
Exceedance routing answers what happens when the drainage system is full. It needs a drawing, defined destinations and a blockage scenario, not a closing paragraph.
Part L transitional arrangements on a phased permission
Part L transitional provisions attach to individual buildings, so plots on the same consented site can be built to different standards depending on when work started.
Pollutant linkage and why breaking it matters
Contamination is only a planning problem where a contaminant, a pathway and a receptor are connected. Breaking any one element removes the linkage.
Interception losses and the first 5mm of rainfall in SuDS
Interception losses deal with small frequent rainfall rather than the design storm. Attenuation tanks provide none of it, and the evidence is a separate calculation.
Geological SSSIs and development on a rock exposure
On a geological SSSI the interest is a physical exposure, so mitigation turns on retained faces, sampling access and management rather than habitat compensation.
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