PlanScope Blog – Page 266
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 266
9131 articlesThe Housing Delivery Test and its consequences
The delivery test looks backward at completions while the land supply test looks forward. An authority can pass one and fail the other, and the difference shapes the argument.
Objecting to an extension on daylight grounds
Loss of daylight to a habitable room is material. Loss of a view is not. The objections that carry weight describe one window, one room and the geometry between them.
What chartered membership of the RTPI actually means
Planning is not a protected profession, so anyone can act as your planning agent. Chartered status brings assessed competence, a code of conduct and a complaints route.
Flood resilient basements: BS 8102 grades and pumping
Waterproofing grade is the second question. The first is whether a basement dwelling is acceptable in the flood zone at all, because the use is classified as highly vulnerable.
Walkthrough: a new agricultural building on a holding
An illustrative walkthrough of a prior notification for a general purpose farm store, from the qualifying area test to the conditions that attach automatically.
Land contamination phase 1 or phase 2: which you need
A phase 1 desk study decides whether intrusive investigation is needed at all. The trigger is a plausible pollutant linkage, not site history on its own.
Section 106 legal and monitoring costs explained
The council's legal bill is only one part of a section 106 agreement's cost. Monitoring fees, variation costs and the carrying cost of delay usually matter more.
Reports for a small light industrial or storage unit
For a small workshop or storage unit, the yard drives the report list more than the building does. Here is the pack councils expect, and the order to commission it in.
Removing a chimney: when planning permission applies
There is no permitted development class that allows chimney removal outright. The test is whether the external appearance changes materially, and in a conservation area an Article 4 direction may decide it for you.
Budgeting ground investigation from desk study to Phase 2
The desk study is the small invoice. Phase 2, gas monitoring and the verification work that follows consent are where contamination budgets break.
Reports for an HMO conversion in an Article 4 area
An Article 4 direction turns a C3 to C4 change into a full application judged on local standards. The evidence councils expect, and the order to gather it in.
Wrap around extensions and the Class A limits
Rear limits and side limits both apply to a wrap around, and the side element usually fails first. How to work out whether yours is permitted development.
Walkthrough: an industrial unit becoming a gym
Storage and distribution to a gym is a material change of use. An illustrative scheme where vibration from dropped weights, not airborne noise, decided it.
Budgeting a BS 5837 tree evidence base
Arboricultural work comes in stages and the survey is only the first invoice. What drives the price, and why surveying after the layout is drawn costs most.
Reports for a residential basement excavation
A basement under a house needs ground, movement and flood evidence that ordinary extensions never touch, plus party wall notices outside the planning system.
Roof terraces on a flat roof extension
A roof terrace is a raised platform and falls outside permitted development. What the privacy assessment involves and how to draw the mitigation properly.
Class ZA: demolition and rebuild as new dwellings
Class ZA allows demolition and rebuild as dwellings through prior approval, but the qualifying tests are narrow and Class MA usually beats it.
Following an application through to completion
The decision is not the end. How to follow condition discharge, amendments and construction on the public register, and what each status actually means.
Crane oversail and what planning permission does not grant
Planning permission confers no rights over land you do not own. What an oversailing licence covers, and the consents a tower crane needs beyond the planning file.
Walkthrough: converting a pub to residential
Pubs are sui generis and lost their permitted development rights in 2017. An illustrative conversion, from the community value listing to the committee vote.
Budgeting biodiversity net gain on a small site
The survey is the small number. Off-site units, the legal agreement and thirty years of management are where a small site biodiversity budget goes wrong.
Why householder applications are refused most often
The reasons householder applications fail barely change between councils, and almost all of them are visible on the drawings before submission.
Reports for converting an office to a children's nursery
Offices and day nurseries both sit in Class E, so the change of use is usually free. The evidence comes through the works, the conditions and environmental health.
The drainage hierarchy section of a drainage strategy
A drainage strategy that skips a tier of the hierarchy without evidence draws a holding objection. What proof the flood authority wants at each step.
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