PlanScope Blog – Page 185
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 185
9311 articlesPenalties for breaching a Tree Preservation Order
Section 210 creates two offences of very different weight, and the court is directed to have regard to the financial benefit the defendant obtained.
Checking the extent of the public highway
The public highway is almost always wider than the tarmac. The section 36 list of streets tells you a street is maintainable, not where its boundary runs.
Applying the BRE numerical tests flexibly in cities
The BRE values are reference points, not standards. Flexibility means substituting a locally evidenced target for the general one, not asserting that a site is urban.
Metalliferous mining legacy in the south west
There is no national reporting service for metal mining legacy. On a Cornish site, a desk study that finds nothing has told you almost nothing.
Modelling urban creep on a redevelopment
Urban creep is applied to contributing area, not to rainfall. Confusing it with the climate change allowance is how residential drainage systems end up undersized.
Community groups in shop units: Class F1 or F2
Class F1 covers public halls and places of worship. Class F2 covers halls for the principal use of the local community. The word principal is where applications go wrong.
Resubmitting rather than appealing: how to choose
Appeal when the disagreement is about planning judgement. Resubmit when the disagreement is about the scheme. The rest is timing, fees and the appeal clock.
The replacement tree duty after unauthorised felling
Felling a protected tree triggers a replacement duty under section 206 that attaches to whoever owns the land, not to whoever did the felling.
Street lighting, columns and adoption on new estates
A lighting design that satisfies the planning case officer can still be rejected by the street lighting engineer. Settle the adoption route before the layout is fixed.
Loss of outlook distinguished from loss of daylight
An extension can pass every daylight test and still be refused for overbearing impact. Daylight is measured, outlook is judged, and a view is not protected at all.
Brine subsidence and salt field ground stability
Brine subsidence is a dissolution hazard, not a collapse hazard, and it can continue long after pumping stopped. Rockhead condition drives the whole risk assessment.
Drainage information required at outline stage
An outline application needs proof the site can be drained, enough land reserved to do it, and a deliverable discharge point. Detailed design belongs in a condition.
Children's homes: C2 or C3 under the Use Classes Order
Small children's homes are often Class C3 dwellinghouses rather than C2 institutions. The head count, the single household test and the statutory meaning of care decide it.
Hydrologist or drainage engineer for a drainage strategy
Hydrology sets the runoff rates a drainage network has to meet. Engineering designs the network. Knowing which skill is missing from a strategy is what stops a holding objection.
Nail bars and salons: ventilation and extraction evidence
A salon in a vacant Class E unit rarely needs a change of use application. The duct, the flue route and the fan almost always do, and the evidence has to be specific.
Affordable housing tenure split on major sites
How much affordable housing is policy. What tenure it is gets negotiated, and on a 50 home scheme the split moves residual value more than the headline percentage.
Appealing a Community Infrastructure Levy surcharge
CIL surcharges are appealed to the Planning Inspectorate within 28 days of the day they are imposed. The grounds are narrow, and most appeals turn on proof of what was served and when.
Water efficiency and optional technical standards by scale
The 110 litre water standard and the accessibility requirements apply only where local policy adopts them, by condition. Here is what each demands in design terms.
Rebutting a design based reason for refusal
Design refusals rest on judgement, so the answer is evidence. Here is how to build a measured character assessment and decide between appealing and redesigning.
A worked travel plan target and monitoring framework
Most travel plan targets cannot be measured. Here is an illustrative worked framework with baseline timing, survey method, tolerances and a capped remedy menu.
Transport statement or transport assessment: the cost difference
The label matters less than the scope. Here is what each document contains, what actually drives the cost, and the scoping note that turns a variable fee into a fixed one.
Turning heads, cul-de-sac length and layout geometry
Turning heads are sized by the refuse freighter, not the car. Here is what actually fixes cul-de-sac geometry, and where the local design guide can be argued with.
Obtrusive light: curfew hours and intrusion limits
Obtrusive light is judged on light at the neighbour's window, light escaping upwards, and the curfew. Here is how the zones work and what to measure.
Radar safeguarding and why turbines and cranes get objections
Radar objections are about a structure being visible to a radar, not in the way of an aircraft. Here is how interference arises and how it gets resolved.
Not sure which documents your council will ask for?
Enter your postcode and PlanScope recommends the right reports for your project, then drafts them in minutes.
Enter your postcode on PlanScope