PlanScope Blog – Page 196
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 196
9257 articlesHazardous substances consent: the fee and the triggers
Hazardous substances consent is separate from planning permission, with its own fee and decision maker. The trigger is presence at or above a controlled quantity, aggregated across the site.
Statutory consultees and the 21 day response duty
A statutory consultee has 21 days to give a substantive response, and the authority may determine without one. The harder problem is the holding objection that arrives on day 20.
Background sound level: how LA90 is determined
The representative background sound level drives every BS 4142 result. This is how LA90,T is measured, how a representative value is chosen, and what a reviewing officer will question.
How to search a site's planning history properly
The statutory register answers questions a survey cannot: removed permitted development rights, live unimplemented permissions and obligations that bind the land. Here is how to search it without missing half the file.
Freeboard in a flood risk assessment, explained
Freeboard covers the uncertainty in a modelled flood level rather than adding arbitrary height. Understanding what it is protecting against explains why the figure varies between sites.
Sewer connection and infrastructure charges explained
The statutory right to connect does not make capacity available, and none of the undertaker's charges sit inside the planning fee. Start the enquiry before you exchange on the land.
Greenfield runoff rate and why it sets the discharge limit
The greenfield runoff rate describes how a site would drain if nothing had been built on it. It sets the discharge ceiling under the national sustainable drainage standards, and the storage volume follows from it.
Temporary permission or personal permission: which
A time limit answers an untested effect. A personal condition answers a use that is only acceptable because of the operator. Choosing the wrong one produces a consent you cannot sell or renew.
Bat mitigation class licence costs and registration
A bat mitigation class licence saves weeks at the licensing stage, not at the survey stage. The cost sits in mitigation, supervision and years of monitoring rather than in the licence charge.
When a council refuses to validate your application
An unvalidated application does not exist and no clock is running. Separating national information requirements from local list items is the first step in any validation dispute.
How to check what a section 106 agreement delivered
Planning obligations are public documents and councils must report on them annually. Reading the triggers before the totals is what turns a general grievance into a specific question.
Class G: adding flats above a shop or office
Class G of Part 3 keeps the commercial ground floor and adds flats above through prior approval. The change of use is permitted, the new door and staircase are not.
Appointing an ecological clerk of works on site
Ecological supervision fails when nobody defines it. Settle the trigger list, the competence requirement, the authority to stop work and the reporting outputs in the appointment itself.
Amenity conditions that cannot be enforced, and why
Amenity conditions fail on precision and enforceability more often than any other kind. Converting a subjective effect into a measurable requirement is what makes them stand up.
Heat pump noise and the assessment planning expects
The permitted development right for a domestic air source heat pump depends on an MCS noise calculation at the neighbour's window. Where the right falls away, expect a BS 4142 assessment instead.
Ventilation strategy where windows cannot be opened
Where external noise means windows stay closed at night, ventilation and overheating both have to work without them. One shared assumptions register keeps the acoustic and thermal models describing the same building.
Extension of time or non-determination appeal
Agreeing an extension of time keeps influence with the officer but can displace the fee refund. Appealing non-determination takes the decision away and lets the council write its reasons after seeing yours.
Asbestos survey costs before demolition or conversion
The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 require an intrusive survey before works disturb the fabric. Ordering the wrong survey type is the mistake that costs a month on a conversion.
Late objections: must a planning officer consider them?
The publicity period fixes the earliest date a council may decide, not the last date for a comment. What changes after it closes is procedure, and how you write matters more than the deadline.
How to get involved in a neighbourhood plan
A made neighbourhood plan decides applications alongside the local plan. Joining the qualifying body and responding at Regulation 14 gives you far more influence than objecting later.
Places of worship and class F1(f): what it allows
Places of worship sit in class F1(f) of the Use Classes Order. The wording covers connected activity, which is why congregation halls are usually fine and commercial hire often is not.
Who is competent to write a GLVIA3 landscape assessment
No statute says who may write a landscape and visual impact assessment. Chartered membership, a transparent method and a viewpoint schedule agreed with the authority are what make the evidence stand up.
Cooking odour and the flats above a food business
Extraction that discharges above roof level, at sufficient velocity, with filtration matched to the cooking type, is what keeps cooking odour out of the flats upstairs. Retrofits start with the termination, not the filters.
Post-occupancy energy reporting conditions explained
Energy monitoring conditions are easy to accept at committee and hard to discharge years later. The fix is a metering strategy designed around the reporting metrics before the building is built.
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