PlanScope Blog – Page 281
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 281
9100 articlesThe feedback section of a community involvement statement
The feedback section is the part officers quote in a committee report. How to summarise responses without filtering them, and how to show what the scheme changed.
Section 38 agreements and the road adoption bond
Adoption transfers permanent maintenance liability to the highway authority, which is why the standards are strict and the bond is larger than the build cost.
Habitat creation: planting seasons and failure
Most habitat failures trace back to establishment: wrong season, wrong seedbed, no watering, or a mowing regime nobody told the contractor about.
Archaeological evaluation before or after determination
Evaluating before determination costs money before permission exists. Deferring it to a condition moves the risk to the point where delay costs most. How to choose.
Varying trading hours under a section 73 application
Section 73 varies a condition without reopening the principle of the use. What to check in the decision notice first, and the evidence that supports later hours.
Protecting public houses in a London application
Losing a pub in London needs authoritative marketing evidence and a policy case. What boroughs scrutinise, and why retaining a workable pub is the safer route.
The waste stream section of a site waste management plan
The waste stream forecast is what a council checks when the condition comes back. How to estimate arisings, segregate on a tight site and evidence the diversion claim.
Council enforcement priorities and how complaints work
Enforcement is a discretionary power, not a duty. What to put in a complaint, how councils prioritise, what the formal tools are and when the ombudsman can help.
Whole life carbon modules A to C explained
A carbon figure means nothing until you know its scope. What modules A, B, C and D cover, and which assumptions a reviewer should test first.
Rooftop plant noise: screens, louvres and enclosures
On a roof the governing receptor is often above the screen. How barrier geometry, louvre pressure drop and vibration isolation decide whether rooftop plant passes.
Requesting and using STATS19 collision data
STATS19 records have to be requested, and they arrive with limits. How to scope the request, separate the relevant collisions and write the analysis honestly.
Biodiversity metric errors councils find most often
Metric calculations rarely fail on arithmetic. They fail on habitat classification, unevidenced condition scores and retained habitat that the layout builds over.
Curtilage listing: what the listing actually covers
A list entry describes the house, but the listing can cover the stables, the coach house and the garden wall. How to work out what is protected, and on what evidence.
Marquees and permanent structures in a pub garden
A marquee can be a building in planning terms even though it comes down. Size, permanence and attachment decide it, and the noise case usually decides the application.
Industrial land in London: no net loss and SIL policy
No net loss applies to industrial capacity, not to the floorspace that happens to be standing. What that means for intensification, co-location and release cases in London.
The fire appliance access section of a fire statement
Fire service access is where the landscape strategy and the fire strategy collide. What the access section has to demonstrate on the layout actually being submitted.
SAP outputs an energy statement has to show
Part L 2021 sets three targets per dwelling, not one. What the energy statement has to report, how carbon factors changed the answer, and the checks officers run.
Heat pump noise and the permitted development condition
A domestic air source heat pump is permitted development only if the calculated noise at the neighbour's window meets the MCS 020 limit. Siting, evidence and the route if it fails.
Traffic survey timing and neutral months explained
Neutral months are a professional convention rather than a rule in guidance. Here is which periods highway authorities accept, and how to defend a count that gets questioned.
Biosecurity method statements on development sites
Ecology conditions increasingly require a biosecurity method statement. What the amphibian disease and aquatic invasive risks are, and how to write a protocol a council will approve.
Total loss of a listed building: the policy test
Total loss of a designated heritage asset is substantial harm at its most extreme. The four limbs of the national test, and the evidence that has to sit behind each one.
Farm shop and cafe: ancillary use or separate retail
Selling the holding's own produce is usually ancillary to farming. Bought-in stock, passing trade and a cafe move the operation towards a separate retail use that needs permission.
Optimising site capacity under London Plan policy D3
Density is now an output of the design process in London, not an input. Here is how to build a design-led capacity study that an officer can follow and a borough will accept.
Abnormal costs in a viability assessment: what counts
Abnormal costs carry the biggest gap between an applicant's appraisal and the council's review. Here is what qualifies, what evidence holds up and where reviewers cut the schedule.
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