PlanScope Blog – Page 263
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 263
9138 articlesReports needed for a gym in a former warehouse
Moving a gym into a warehouse unit needs planning permission and two arguments: the loss of employment floorspace, and structure-borne noise from dropped weights.
Selecting TRICS sites for a Transport Assessment
Two planners filtering the same database can produce trip rates differing by half. How to build a filter set you can defend, and what a highway authority checks when it re-runs your selection.
Neighbourhood plans and the weight they carry
Neighbourhood plan weight changes on the day the plan is made. The basic conditions, the effect of section 38(5) on conflict with the local plan, and how to evidence Local Green Space.
Traffic counts in neutral months and why August fails
Neutral month traffic counts are the baseline highway authorities accept. Which months and days work, what weather and roadworks do to a survey, and how far ahead to commission.
Making representations to an inspector at appeal
Comments at appeal go to the Planning Inspectorate against a deadline in the start letter. What carries over from your original objection, how hearings and inquiries differ, and what happens at the site visit.
Geotechnical competence and Eurocode 7 supervision
Eurocode 7 rests on assumptions about who does what. How geotechnical categories change the scope, why supervision of the investigation matters, and the difference between factual and interpretative reports.
Walkthrough: stables and a menage in the Green Belt
One illustrative proposal for four stables and a 20 by 40 metre menage on Green Belt grazing land, following the use class question, the openness test, arena lighting and the documents submitted.
Speaking at planning committee: three minutes that work
Most councils allow objectors three minutes at planning committee, frequently pooled across everyone on the item. A tested structure for the speech, plus the points that waste the time.
Biodiversity net gain or ecological impact assessment
The statutory metric and ecological impact assessment answer different questions and are secured by different mechanisms. What each covers, what the metric is silent on, and how to run one survey programme for both.
Costing a BS 5837 arboricultural package stage by stage
BS 5837:2012 describes a sequence of five documents, not one tree report. What drives the fee at each stage, why supervision conditions matter, and the commissioning order that avoids repeat work.
Reports needed for a nursery in a former bank unit
Moving a day nursery into a former bank unit rarely needs permission for the change of use itself. The evidence the council will want covers the works, outdoor play space, drop-off and extraction.
Writing the significance section of a Heritage Statement
The significance section decides how the harm assessment reads. A practical structure for the four heritage interests, setting, element grading and the archive sources that support each.
Section 38(6) and the development plan in decisions
Section 38(6) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 sets the order of every English planning decision. What the development plan includes, how conflicts are resolved and when material considerations displace it.
Material considerations and what the law allows
What makes a consideration material in planning law, the two-part test the courts apply, and why materiality and weight are different questions.
Sequential test or exception test: order and evidence
Why the sequential test comes first, how the area of search decides the outcome, what makes a site reasonably available, and the two limbs of the exception test.
Budgeting a bat survey across two survey seasons
What actually drives bat survey costs, why the season limits your options, and how to build a two year programme covering surveys, licensing and monitoring.
Curtilage in planning and listed building law
What curtilage means in planning, the factors that fix it, how curtilage listing works under section 1(5), and where a garden is not curtilage at all.
Walkthrough: a mixed use scheme with retail below flats
An illustrative walkthrough of nine flats above a commercial unit, where almost every issue came from the interface between the two uses rather than either use alone.
Checking surface water and critical drainage areas locally
Flood Zone 1 does not mean no flood risk assessment. How to check surface water risk and critical drainage areas, and where lead local flood authority standards sit.
Botanical survey season and habitat condition assessment
Why habitat condition can only be assessed between April and September, what a precautionary out of season baseline costs, and how to programme a survey before buying a plot.
What happens to your objection after consultation closes
Where an objection goes once the consultation period ends, how summarising can lose your point, and the checks worth making before the decision is issued.
Viability assessment competence and RICS standards
Viability assessments are valuation exercises tested by an independent reviewer. What competence councils expect, which inputs decide the outcome, and how to challenge one.
Pre-application meeting: agenda and what to bring
How to prepare for a pre-application meeting so the advice is worth the fee, including the documents to send in advance and the questions that produce usable answers.
Foul sewage assessment or drainage strategy: which you need
Two flows, two regulators, two documents. How the right to connect works, when a package treatment plant is acceptable, and what councils ask for at each scale.
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