PlanScope Blog – Page 197
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 197
9256 articlesGrampian condition or section 106 obligation: choosing
Money means a deed. A physical event that must happen before development proceeds usually means a negatively worded condition. The hard cases are off-site works on land the applicant does not control.
Stopping up and diversion order costs on a development
Planning permission does not remove public rights over land. Sections 247 and 257 orders have their own procedure and costs, and an objection that forces an inquiry is the item that wrecks the programme.
How to get an application referred to planning committee
Most English planning applications are decided by officers under a scheme of delegation. Here is how a councillor call-in works, when the window closes and what a committee hearing can and cannot change.
Section 70C: when a council can decline to determine
Section 70C of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 lets an authority decline to determine an application covering matters already alleged in an enforcement notice. The order of events decides whether your planning merits are heard.
Second applications and second appeals on one site
A refusal is not the end, but a second attempt that looks like the first invites a refusal to determine, a dismissed appeal and a costs award. What has to change, and why.
Re-consultation when amended plans are submitted
Amendments during determination are normal. The limits on how far a scheme can move, and when fresh publicity is required, decide whether the permission is safe.
Reserved matters: the five defined in the DMPO
The five reserved matters have statutory definitions, and each one fixes something different. Knowing what each covers decides what an outline permission has actually settled.
Reading a decision notice as a neighbour
The decision notice, not the officer report, is the enforceable record of what was permitted. The approved plans condition is the part most neighbours never read.
Where site judgement cannot be drafted in a design statement
A draft can carry the structure, the policy references and the checklist. Context, character and the access arrangements that depend on levels come from looking.
C3 to C4: when a house becomes a small HMO
Three unrelated sharers can move a house from C3 into C4. Whether that needs permission depends on an Article 4 direction, and licensing is a separate question again.
Registering under a bat mitigation class licence
Class licensing speeds up low impact bat work, but only for registered consultants, only for listed species and roost types, and only with the record keeping that goes with it.
Construction period amenity and what conditions control
Building work is temporary, which is why councils control it with conditions rather than refuse permission. Knowing which body handles which complaint saves months of frustration.
The energy hierarchy applied to an existing building
The be lean, be clean, be green sequence assumes a blank site. On an existing building the constraints arrive in a different order, and the energy statement has to say so.
Kennels and dog day care: assessing barking noise
Barking is impulsive, unpredictable and loudest at the worst times. Assessing it properly, and offering controls before being asked, is what separates a permission from a refusal.
Section 106 deeds of variation and what they cost
Varying a section 106 agreement is rarely difficult in principle and often slow in practice. The delay and the cost usually come from the parties who have to sign, not from the council.
Citing appeal decisions without overstating them
An appeal decision is evidence of how an inspector approached an issue, not a rule. Using two well-analysed decisions beats listing ten, and overstating one invites a costs application.
Site notices, neighbour letters and the 21 day period
Which applications get a site notice, which get a letter, which get a press notice, and how the 21 day representation period is actually counted.
Engaging at a developer's pre-application event
A public exhibition run by a developer is not the council's consultation. Here is what to ask on the night, what to take away, and what you still have to do afterwards.
Explaining an AI-assisted draft to a client or a committee
Sooner or later a client, an officer or an objector asks how a document was produced. A planner who has thought about the answer in advance gives a better one.
F1 and F2: which community uses sit where
The 2020 amendment split the old institutional and assembly classes into F1 and F2. Which side a use lands on decides whether a change needs permission and which policies protect it.
Accredited archaeologist grades and what each permits
Curators reject archaeological reports on competence grounds more often than on content. Knowing which accreditation grade covers which document saves a determination period.
Amenity for the occupiers of the new development itself
Most amenity assessment looks outward at the neighbours. The living conditions of the scheme's own future occupiers are a separate test, and they refuse schemes on their own.
Solar photovoltaics on a pitched roof: what to model
Roof-mounted solar is usually permitted development, but the numbers in an energy statement still have to be defensible. Here is what to model and what to declare.
Anaerobic digestion plant noise and odour together
An anaerobic digestion application usually fails on the combination of engine noise and feedstock odour rather than on either alone. Scoping both from the same operational description is what holds it together.
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