PlanScope Blog – Page 255
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 255
9152 articlesRemoving an agricultural occupancy condition by section 73
An agricultural tie is removed on evidence, not on hardship. Here is what a section 73 application needs: a disclosed marketing exercise at a restricted price, a chartered valuation and an answer to the council's local need case.
Time limits for implementing a planning permission
Section 91 gives a full permission three years and section 92 gives outline permission two clocks. Neither can be extended, so the sequence of discharging conditions and recording a material operation is what saves a scheme.
Shepherd's huts and mobile homes on agricultural land
A hut on wheels is usually a caravan, so siting it is not operational development. The question is whether occupying it changes the use of the land, and it usually does.
Permission for a taxi or private hire operating base
There is no permitted development route into a taxi or private hire base. Parking evidence and night-time noise decide most applications, and licensing is a separate matter.
Material operation and lawfully starting development
Marking out and clearing a site do not implement a permission. Section 56 lists the operations that do, and every pre-commencement condition must already be discharged.
Conservation covenants for securing habitat for 30 years
A conservation covenant binds the land rather than the signatory and works across authority boundaries, which is why most commercial biodiversity gain sites use one.
Measuring height for planning and for the fire threshold
A building can be under 18 metres for the fire regime and over a tall building threshold in the local plan at the same time. Both numbers belong in the submission.
Daylight when converting commercial premises to homes
A windowless second bedroom fails the Class MA light test whatever the rest of the flat achieves. Deep plan floorplates need lightwells, fewer units or a full application.
Groundwater flooding evidence and how to assess it
A site can sit in Flood Zone 1 and still flood from a rising water table. Characterising the risk means borehole monitoring through a recharge season, not map reading.
Functional floodplain: what Flood Zone 3b changes
Housing is not appropriate development in the functional floodplain, and no mitigation changes that. The extent comes from the local strategic assessment, not the national map.
Mixed uses that become sui generis in their own right
A unit with two uses and neither ancillary sits outside every class. Class E flexibility and Part 3 prior approval routes do not apply, and small shifts in balance need permission.
Livestock buildings, ammonia and the consultation trigger
Screening distances to designated sites decide whether a livestock building is a three month application or a year-long one. Check all three frames before choosing a position.
Permission for a farm glasshouse or polytunnel block
Commercial polytunnels are development, and the 1,000 square metre ground area limit in Part 6 rules out most blocks. Landscape effect and run-off then decide the application.
Retrospective applications under section 73A
Section 73A lets a council grant permission for work already built. It does not pause enforcement, and where a notice has been served the council may decline to determine it.
Off-site biodiversity gain and the statutory register
Units only count once the land is on the biodiversity gain sites register and the units are allocated to your development. A purchase agreement on its own is not enough.
Sequencing planning conditions with gateway two
Planning conditions and gateway two approval come from different bodies against different tests. Run them in parallel with one source of truth for the external envelope.
Outlook and the overbearing test in amenity cases
Loss of outlook has no numerical threshold. The case is made or lost on measured sections, stated distances and a refusal reason that describes the actual relationship.
Culverts and the presumption against burying a stream
Culverting is resisted in policy, needs separate consent from the lead local flood authority or Environment Agency, and now carries a measurable cost in biodiversity units.
Air Quality Management Areas and what they add
An AQMA declaration shifts the starting assumption rather than blocking development. The assessment has to separate exposure of new occupants from emissions the scheme adds.
Conditions precedent and the Whitley principle
Not every condition worded before commencement is a condition precedent. Where one is, an unlawful start can leave the permission unimplemented and then expired.
Conditions naming a superseded use class and section 73
Class A1 was revoked in 2020, but conditions naming it still operate on the permissions that imposed them. Section 73 is the route out, and the replacement wording decides the outcome.
Anaerobic digestion on a farm: the evidence base
Feedstock origin decides whether a farm digester is agricultural diversification or a waste installation. That choice sets the policy tests and the whole evidence base.
Utility connection costs in a development budget
Connection charges sit outside the planning fee regime and cannot be read off a published rate. Budget estimates, requisition routes and diversions decide the number.
Permission for a cemetery extension
Burial capacity is the easy part of a cemetery extension. The hydrogeological risk assessment, trial pits and Environment Agency standoffs decide how long the application takes.
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