PlanScope Blog – Page 209
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 209
9235 articlesDaylight assessment where the baseline is already poor
Below 27 per cent vertical sky component the absolute target is unreachable, so the retained proportion carries the judgement. Two points of sky can be a failure.
Landscape character areas and how they shape design
A character assessment describes a landscape rather than judging a scheme. Answer its key characteristics one by one and a refusal on local character becomes hard to write.
Who designs a commercial kitchen extract scheme
Three competences sit behind a workable extract scheme. A submission signed only by the kitchen equipment supplier is the usual reason a change of use fails on odour.
Solar panels on a house under Part 14 Class A
Roof solar is permitted development within three limits and subject to two conditions, one of which requires the panels to come down when they stop generating.
A tree that stopped a driveway, and what replaced it
A front garden driveway failed because the sub-base excavation would have cut roots inside a protected oak's root protection area. This illustrative walkthrough follows the redesign to a no-dig raft.
A listed building consent submission checklist
Listed building consent is a separate consent with no fee, assessed against the section 16(2) duty. This is the document set that satisfies it, and the level of detail a schedule of works has to reach.
How to measure the 45 degree line from a neighbour window
Draw the 45 degree line from the centre of the neighbour's nearest habitable room window, in plan and in section. This explains the method, the windows that count and the cases where a breach still gets permission.
Which documents a conservation area application needs
A conservation area scheme needs the usual drawings plus proof that it preserves or enhances the area. Here is the document bundle, the permitted development rights you lose, and the six week tree notice.
Section 288 challenge or judicial review: which applies
Two High Court routes exist for challenging a planning decision, and the six week clock starts on the decision letter. Here is which route covers which decision, the grounds available and what a win actually delivers.
Space standards and unit mix as a scheme gets larger
The space standard binds an application only where the local plan adopts it. At scale the difficulty is reconciling area, storage, mix and accessibility at once.
A Class MA conversion refused on natural light
Class MA permits a change of use and nothing else, so a deep-plan office that cannot light its habitable rooms has no remedy inside the right.
A Class Q prior approval submission checklist
Class Q is decided on a closed list of matters in 56 days. The submission that succeeds proves the building qualifies and can be converted without rebuilding.
Severance of a planning unit and what it changes
Selling or letting part of your premises can change its planning character without touching the fabric. An ancillary use, severed, has to stand on its own.
Root protection area for a multi-stem tree, calculated
Multi-stem trees get one combined stem diameter, found from the sum of the squares. Add the diameters instead and the protected area comes out three times too big.
Human remains on site: the licence and the procedure
Removing buried human remains needs a Ministry of Justice licence, or a faculty in consecrated ground. Before either, the coroner has to release the find.
Otter surveys and the riparian buffer councils expect
Otters are a European protected species, so the survey and any licence sit with a licensed ecologist. The buffer width you get depends on how you justify its function.
Why balconies cause daylight failures in new flats
A projecting balcony blocks the sky from the window below and an inset one blocks it from its own room. Neither is fixed by enlarging the glazing.
Development inside an air quality management area
A declared area means a national objective is already being exceeded on that street. Your evidence has to cover both the emissions you add and the exposure of the people you bring.
Geotechnical design competence under Eurocode 7
Eurocode 7 names no qualification. It sets three geotechnical categories and makes the experience needed a function of which one your work falls into.
Back-to-back distances and privacy standards
Separation distances are rules of thumb standing in for a judgement about privacy. Here is where they come from and how to argue a reduced distance.
Barn owls in agricultural building conversions
Schedule 1 protection adds a disturbance offence that can be committed recklessly. Timing, a designed replacement roost and a lighting scheme are the answers.
Mirror massing and alternative scheme comparisons
A notional compliant envelope is an argument rather than a test. Its weight depends entirely on whether the parameters behind it can be sourced and agreed.
Safeguarded wharves and waterside development in London
The test on a safeguarded wharf is whether your scheme prejudices water-borne freight, now or after reactivation. Dormant wharves cause the hardest arguments.
Independence and conflicts in appeal evidence
A proof of evidence has to contain the opinion you hold, not the one your client prefers. What to declare and what to do when your view changes mid-inquiry.
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