PlanScope Blog – Page 219
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 219
9217 articlesLoss of a view and why the objection fails
Loss of a view carries no weight in planning. Loss of outlook does. Here is the difference, and how to write an objection that an officer can actually use.
Drafting for a committee report rather than an officer
Members read the officer report the night before the meeting. Here is how to write supporting documents that survive being summarised, and what works in the three minutes of public speaking.
Hot food takeaway as a sui generis use
Since 2020 a hot food takeaway has been a sui generis use, so no permitted change reaches it. What councils ask for on extraction, noise, hours and parking.
Permitted development rights in a listed building curtilage
Outbuildings within the curtilage of a listed building are never permitted development, while extensions often still are. The two permissions work differently, and you can need both.
What makes an air quality consultant credible to a council
Environmental health officers judge an air quality assessment on its verification section. Here is what to ask a consultant before appointment, and what to read in the proposal.
Retaining walls and boundary ownership in applications
A retained level change on a boundary raises planning, ownership and structural questions at once. Here is how to answer all three before the drawings are finished.
Reading a Flood Map for Planning extract correctly
The Flood Map for Planning gives you a flood zone and little else. Here is what it covers, what it leaves out, and how to present an extract that survives validation.
Worked greenfield run-off rate for a 0.6 hectare site
A step-by-step illustrative greenfield run-off calculation for a small site, showing the inputs a lead local flood authority checks and why two defensible methods give different answers.
What a CIL liability notice means for your project
A liability notice is the council's opening move on the Community Infrastructure Levy. It states the chargeable amount, and the forms that follow it decide whether you keep your instalments and exemptions.
Moving within Class E without a planning application
Section 55(2)(f) puts a change of use within the same class outside the definition of development. Restrictive conditions, lease covenants, building regulations and external works can still stand in the way.
Protected species and permitted development rights
The GPDO grants planning permission and nothing more. Damaging a bat roost during a Class Q conversion is a criminal offence whether or not a council ever looked at the scheme.
Who is competent to prepare a basement impact assessment
No single discipline can write a basement impact assessment. Geotechnics, structures, hydrogeology, drainage and sometimes arboriculture all feed one integrated report with one ground model.
Underpinning and basements in a terraced house
A basement under a terrace has to answer questions about the neighbours' houses first. Shared party walls, constrained access and continuous ground make the engineering and the planning case harder than on a detached site.
Checking energy certificate register data for a building
The energy certificate register gives a free floor area, a construction description and a date-stamped record of how a building was assessed. It misleads in predictable ways worth knowing before you rely on it.
Neighbours and listed building consent applications
Listed building consent asks whether works harm the special architectural or historic interest of a building and its setting. Comments about light, noise and parking belong on the parallel planning application.
What an inspector notices in a poorly drafted statement
Statements that fail share one defect. They assert the conclusion the inspector is being asked to reach without supplying the material that makes it available.
Ancillary use and when it becomes a separate planning unit
An ancillary use serves the main use and needs no separate permission. Once it operates independently, has its own access or serves the public, it becomes a planning unit of its own and a material change of use.
Measuring curtilage when a garden has been enlarged
Curtilage for permitted development is a planning concept rather than a title boundary, and for outbuildings the Order fixes it at the date the house was built or 1 July 1948. Added land usually does not count.
Writing a survey brief that gets you useful work back
Write the brief backwards from the council's validation requirement. Name the standard rather than the conclusion you want, fix the deliverables, and agree in advance how the scope can change.
Piling near neighbouring structures: the planning evidence
Planning does not assess foundation design. It assesses what the neighbours will feel and how that will be monitored. Method statements, trigger levels and working hours are the substance of the condition.
Using historic maps to evidence a former land use
A sequence of OS editions is the cheapest evidence you will get about a site's industrial past. Read the annotations carefully, watch what disappears between editions, and never conclude a site is clean from maps alone.
Travel plan or transport statement: what each one does
A transport statement is finished when it is submitted. A travel plan starts working when the first occupier moves in. Above most local thresholds, a scheme needs both and they have to agree with each other.
Commenting on an application to vary a planning condition
When a developer applies to vary or remove a condition, the council considers only that condition. Comments that argue about the development itself carry no weight. Comments about what the condition protects do.
Briefing a specialist from an AI drafted starting point
A draft with its unverified facts flagged is a usable scope of works. Each flag is a question the specialist has to answer, and listing them produces better fee proposals than an email asking for a price.
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