PlanScope Blog – Page 235
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 235
9188 articlesUsing the brownfield land register in a site search
Every English authority publishes a brownfield land register to a set data standard. What Part 2 entry actually grants, and the checks to run before you bid.
Part O compliance or a CIBSE TM59 assessment
Part O offers a simplified method or dynamic modelling to TM59. The choice belongs at concept stage, because the simplified route limits how much glass you can draw.
Flood Map for Planning or the long term risk service
The planning flood map is undefended and river and sea only. The long term service includes defences, surface water and reservoirs. Use each for what it is built for.
Green Belt: five purposes and inappropriate development
Inappropriate development in the Green Belt is harmful by definition. The five purposes, the listed exceptions and how the very special circumstances test works.
Nurseries and creches in Class E: what goes with them
Class E(f) covers creches and day nurseries, so a shop unit is open to you without an application. A dwelling is not. What changes, and what the council will ask.
The materials of similar appearance condition explained
Breach the materials condition and the permitted development right disappears. What similar appearance means for brick, render, cladding and dormer cheeks.
Servicing and deliveries in mixed use schemes
One loading bay, two waste streams and a 06:00 delivery peak. What highway officers expect to see in servicing evidence for a mixed use scheme.
Who prepares a viability assessment, and independence
A viability assessment is only as strong as the valuer behind it. What the RICS professional statement requires, and how the council's reviewer will test your inputs.
How to produce a valid site location plan
The red line has to enclose everything needed to build, match the ownership certificate and sit on licensed mapping. Here is how to get it right first time.
Opticians, pharmacies and the Class E health boundary
A pharmacy is retail, a sight test is a health service, and both sit inside Class E. What that means for change of use, and the old conditions that still bite.
Green Infrastructure Plan or Landscape Strategy
A green infrastructure plan answers a policy question about the network. A landscape strategy tells the contractor what to plant and the council what to enforce.
Enforcement notice: what it means in planning
Issued under section 172 of the 1990 Act, an enforcement notice attaches to the land, carries a 28-day minimum before it takes effect and makes non-compliance a criminal offence.
Development plan: what it means in planning
Section 38(6) requires decisions to follow the development plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise. What counts as the plan, and what does not.
Reserved matters: what it means in planning
Outline permission settles the principle. Reserved matters are the five details left for later approval, with a three-year clock attached.
Checking coal mining legacy data for a site
Being in a coal mining reporting area tells you records exist. Being in a development high risk area tells you the council will expect a risk assessment with the application.
Nutrient neutrality or water neutrality: different problems
Two constraints that sound alike and behave nothing alike. One counts kilograms of nitrogen reaching a protected site, the other counts litres taken out of a supply zone.
Reports for building on a former petrol filling station
Underground tanks, interceptors and fuel lines make a former forecourt one of the highest risk previous uses a council sees. The evidence chain is long and it runs in one direction.
Article 4 directions: checking whether one covers your site
Article 4 coverage is the constraint most likely to be missed on an acquisition, and the one that most often turns a permitted development conversion into a contested application.
Class F1 and F2: what the local community classes cover
The 2020 reforms split the old D1 and D2 classes. What stayed community, what moved into Class E, and why a 280 square metre shop can be in two different classes.
What counts as a side elevation fronting a highway
A highway is not only a road. A public footpath running past your gable is a highway, and that can change which permitted development rights you hold.
When a development needs a traffic regulation order
A traffic regulation order is the slowest item on most highway programmes, and only the authority can make one. Plan for it at pre-application stage, not after permission.
Choosing a transport planner for a highway case
The highway officer reads a handful of things closely: trip rates, visibility, collision data and the access drawing. Appoint someone who can defend all four.
Finding Tree Preservation Orders and checking coverage
A Tree Preservation Order is a document plus a map, and the two have to be read together. The classification decides whether your tree is covered at all.
Reports for a rooftop extension to a block of flats
Adding storeys to a block of flats under Part 20 is a prior approval, not a free pass. The class names the subjects the council will assess, and structure and daylight lead the list.
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