PlanScope Blog – Page 211
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 211
9231 articlesWriting a non-technical summary anyone can act on
The non-technical summary is required by the EIA Regulations and is the only part of the environmental statement most consultees open. Written as a compressed technical document, it fails both jobs.
A traveller pitch application: what the evidence must show
Traveller site applications run on their own national policy, with its own definitions and its own tests. The evidence that decides them is need, layout and flood risk, in that order.
A statement of common ground that narrows the issues
The point of a statement of common ground is to stop an inspector spending a day on facts nobody disputes. Drafted carelessly, it concedes things you needed to argue.
Planning permission for a farm reservoir or irrigation lagoon
Capacity is the decision that shapes everything else on a farm reservoir: it determines whether reservoir safety legislation applies, what the abstraction licence has to cover, and how much spoil you have to place.
Registered parks and gardens and the setting test
A registered park and garden has no consent regime of its own. What bites is the assessment of setting, and the five step method Historic England publishes for it.
Meeting the RICS professional statement on viability
The RICS professional statement on financial viability makes objectivity a mandatory requirement, not an aspiration. Assessments that read as advocacy get rejected before the numbers are tested.
Outbuildings under Class E and the fifty per cent test
A garden room under Class E fails on one of two things: the half-curtilage calculation, or the 2.5 metre height limit that applies within two metres of a boundary.
A single dwelling on an infill plot in a Green Belt village
An illustrative walkthrough of a one house application on a gap between two cottages in a washed over Green Belt village, where the whole case turned on the meaning of limited infilling.
A materials schedule that discharges the condition first time
A materials condition is discharged on what you submit, not on what you intend to build. Cover every external element, name products properly, and get the samples on site before you apply.
Converting a shop into a tattoo studio or nail bar
A nail bar is normally a Class E service use, so the change from a shop needs no permission. A tattoo studio is less settled, and the answer decides whether you apply or just open.
Recreational disturbance zones and alternative green space
Within a zone of influence, a new dwelling has to buy its way out of recreational pressure on a European site. The mitigation is access management money, alternative green space, or both.
Choosing a daylight consultant where no licence exists
Anyone can call themselves a daylight consultant. With no licence to check, a client has to test experience, modelling capability and appeal record instead.
Class B roof extensions and the cubic content allowance
A dormer under Class B lives or dies on the cubic content sum and the set back from the original eaves. Both are measured against the roof as originally built, not as you found it.
A nursery change of use and the outdoor play noise objection
Outdoor play noise is the objection that decides most nursery applications. An illustrative walkthrough of how the assessment, the play area design and the conditions came together.
Drawing schedules and title blocks that survive validation
Drawing numbers end up in the approved plans condition, which is what actually defines your permission. Get the numbering and revision control wrong and the paperwork outlives the project.
Planning permission for a slipway or jetty on a tidal river
Below the high water mark a jetty stops being a planning matter alone. Marine licensing, flood risk permits, navigation consent and a seabed lease all sit on top of the planning application.
Habitats regulations assessment on a small residential site
The habitats regulations do not have a size threshold. A one house scheme in the wrong catchment can require an appropriate assessment, and the duty sits with the council rather than with you.
Who can prepare a Transport Assessment
Nothing in law says who may write a Transport Assessment. Highway authorities decide whether to believe it, and their confidence rests on institute membership, data access and modelling capability.
Side extensions under Class A in a conservation area
In a conservation area, Class A of Part 1 stops at the side elevation. A side extension needs planning permission, and the design case has to be made properly rather than assumed.
How bat surveys delayed a single plot scheme by a year
An illustrative walkthrough of a one plot self-build where a preliminary roost assessment in October found moderate suitability, and the emergence survey season had already closed.
Schedule of accommodation for a planning application
A schedule of accommodation is a checking document, not a design document. If the areas do not reconcile with the drawings, the application form and the fee, the officer stops reading and starts emailing.
Planning fee exemptions for disabled adaptations
Two concessions in the planning fee regulations save householders real money: the exemption for adaptations for a disabled person, and the single free further application. Both are refused often, usually for avoidable reasons.
Flats above a working pub: agent of change in practice
The upper floors of a trading pub look like easy units until the acoustics are priced. Agent of change puts the mitigation on the incoming flats, and the council will want it verified on completion.
Ramsar sites and why policy treats them as European sites
A listed Ramsar site is not a European site in law, but national policy requires the same assessment. Where that distinction matters, and what the evidence has to cover.
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