PlanScope Blog – Page 182
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 182
9315 articlesNight-time noise, LOAEL and SOAEL in planning decisions
The Noise Policy Statement for England deliberately sets no numeric threshold, so any figure you adopt is a professional judgement that has to be justified as one.
Arboricultural evidence at appeal
Inspectors in tree cases ask whether the loss is necessary, whether retained trees will survive construction, and whether the replacement is measurable.
Counting affected windows and stating the proportion
A scheme can report that 92 per cent of windows meet the guidance while three flats lose half their light. The denominators and the outliers belong on the same page.
Blue roofs or permeable paving: where each one works
Structural capacity at roof level and the ground beneath the hardstanding usually decide this. Where contamination or groundwater rules out the pavement, the roof carries the scheme.
How the Health and Safety Executive consults at Gateway One
The Executive cannot refuse an application, but a response saying the fire statement lacks the information to assess the design will stop a recommendation to approve.
Heat pump acoustic enclosures without losing efficiency
An enclosure that cuts sound power by 8 dB and airflow by a third can leave the neighbour worse off, because the compressor simply runs for longer.
Noise from nurseries and school playgrounds
Play noise is intermittent, intelligible and judged subjectively. An absolute assessment at the nearest windows plus a conditionable management regime beats a rating level.
Retaining walls and level changes in a root protection area
Cut removes rooting volume, fill closes the gas exchange path, and a strip-footed retaining wall does both along the worst possible line. The engineering answers are different.
Overshadowing the garden setting of a listed building
The same shadow can pass as an amenity effect and fail as harm to the setting of a listed building. The two assessments need separate evidence and one set of drawings.
Sustainable drainage on a small infill plot
Minor development does not need major-scheme attenuation design. It needs a measured impermeable area, a tested infiltration rate and a discharge route someone has the right to use.
Withdrawing a planning appeal and what follows
Withdrawal closes the appeal but does not undo the refusal. The costs exposure depends on timing, and a second appeal against the same decision is not available.
Which buildings need a fire statement at Gateway One
Article 9A of the DMPO 2015 requires a fire statement where development involves a relevant building. Both the use limb and the height limb have to be met.
Overheating and acoustics: resolving the window conflict
Where an open window breaches the internal night-time noise criteria, the overheating strategy has to work with it closed. Layout and shading decide whether that is affordable.
Rooftop plant noise assessed to BS 4142
A BS 4142 assessment turns on the rating level at the nearest receptor against the background sound level in the same period. Source data and geometry decide the answer.
Street tree soil volume and why it decides survival
A tree grows only the crown its roots can support. Sizing rooting volume against mature canopy, and detailing it under adoptable construction, decides whether canopy targets are ever met.
Rooflights and historic windows: daylight in a heritage context
Conservation officers object to the means, not the objective. Quantify the daylight problem, then show the chosen opening is the least harmful way to fix it.
SuDS adoption and the maintenance schedule councils expect
Schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 was never brought into force, so every SuDS asset needs a negotiated adoption route, a written schedule and a mechanism that binds successors.
Appealing the loss of employment land or floorspace
Appeals against the loss of employment land turn on marketing records, viability arithmetic and whether the council's land supply figures survive testing.
Surface water flood maps against a local model
National surface water mapping applies rainfall to a coarse terrain model with no real drainage network. This compares it with local hydraulic modelling and sets out how to reconcile conflicting sources.
Nurseries in commercial units: play space and drop off
Class E(f) makes the change of use straightforward in most commercial units. What decides a nursery application is outdoor play provision, the concentrated drop off peak and the noise and air quality case.
Appealing a refusal on biodiversity or net gain grounds
Inspectors will not defer a survey that could change the design. This sets out how to answer adequacy refusals, dispute a metric, offer off-site units and decide whether to wait for a survey window.
Brise soleil and green walls in a daylight model
External shading and living walls change what a daylight model should report. This covers louvre geometry, the maintained condition of a green wall, and the conflict with the overheating case.
Departing from the drainage hierarchy: evidence that works
A hierarchy justification stands on trial pit logs, level surveys and dated correspondence, not on professional opinion. This sets out what evidence closes each tier and how to present it.
Ancient woodland: proving what is on the inventory
The inventory is a record of likelihood, not a designation, and its boundaries can be wrong in both directions. This sets out the map and field evidence that tests a boundary, and how to use it.
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