PlanScope Blog – Page 287
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 287
9085 articlesPlanning permission for a day nursery or creche
Class E(f) covers nurseries, so the use often needs no permission at all. The real arguments are drop-off parking at fixed peaks and how noise from outdoor play is assessed.
Special Protection Areas and recreational disturbance
Housing near an SPA usually needs a disturbance tariff and alternative greenspace secured before permission. Here is how zones, standards and in-combination assessment work.
Choosing a historic building recording level
Recording levels run from a basic photographic record to a full analytical account. Here is how to match the level to what is being lost and agree it before work starts.
eDNA sampling for great crested newts and its window
An eDNA test gives presence or absence for one pond in one season, and only between 15 April and 30 June. Here is how to use it, and the options when the window has passed.
Trees in the setting of a listed building
Trees in a listed building's curtilage need no listed building consent, but they can still be part of its setting. Here is how significance, harm and replacement planting are argued.
Curtilage and principal elevation in Class A cases
Most Class A disputes turn on defined terms rather than dimensions. Here is how curtilage, the original dwellinghouse and the principal elevation are established, including corner plots.
Wind microclimate assessment: who runs the model
Wind assessments for tall buildings are written by specialist wind engineers. Here is how tunnel testing compares with computational modelling, and what a reviewing officer checks first.
A worked parking stress survey for an urban site
Parking stress is parked vehicles divided by usable kerb capacity. Here is the catchment, the deductions, the survey timing and a worked calculation officers will accept.
Ownership certificates A, B, C and D compared
Certificates A to D are statutory declarations under section 65 of the 1990 Act. Here is what each one says, the notices that follow and the consequences of getting it wrong.
Planning permission for a glamping or holiday lodge site
Siting pods or lodges on a field is a material change of use. Here is how the countryside location test, the temporary use allowances, drainage and occupancy conditions decide these applications.
Design code: what it fixes and what it leaves open
Design codes fix the parameters that decide whether a street works and leave internal layout and detailed expression open. Which parameters are usually coded, how much weight a code carries, and how to argue a departure.
Special Areas of Conservation and the habitats test
Where a Special Area of Conservation could be affected, the council must reach certainty that site integrity is safe rather than weigh harm against benefit. How screening, appropriate assessment and mitigation actually work.
Written schemes of investigation: what gets approved
A written scheme of investigation is approved by the council's archaeological advisor, not the case officer. What the document needs to contain, from sampling strategy to archive deposition, and the mistakes that cost weeks.
Bat mitigation licences and the three derogation tests
A bat mitigation licence turns on three derogation tests under the Habitats Regulations, not on the planning balance. What each test requires, what Natural England expects, and how the timing shapes a build programme.
Pruning specifications and writing them properly
A pruning specification has to satisfy the tree officer, the contractor and the person inspecting afterwards. Using the right terms, expressing reductions as measurements, and wording that can be conditioned and enforced.
How the prior approval procedure actually works
The GPDO grants the permission; prior approval asks the council to consider a short list of specified matters. What the application must contain, how the 56-day period works, and why refusals for insufficient information are so common.
Who can prepare an overheating assessment to TM59
TM59 overheating assessments are judged on their assumptions, not their conclusions. What the methodology demands of a modeller, the inputs that decide pass or fail, and how the planning and Building Regulations routes differ.
Advertisement consent or listed building consent for signage
Advertisement consent judges the display on amenity and public safety. Listed building consent judges the works on their effect on special interest. How the two differ and why the listed building risk never expires.
How to get planning permission for a community workshop
Whether a community workshop is a meeting place or a light industrial use decides the application. How to settle the use class and answer the noise, extraction, parking and storage questions councils raise.
Which reports a scheme beside a railway needs
Development beside a live railway brings a second organisation into the process with its own approvals. The noise, vibration, drainage, lighting and construction documents a council and the infrastructure manager expect.
Standard method: calculating local housing need
The standard method produces one minimum annual housing need figure per authority. How the baseline and affordability adjustment work, how need differs from the adopted requirement, and what a supply shortfall actually changes.
Registered battlefields and the evidence they require
A registered battlefield carries the highest level of heritage protection in policy terms but no separate consent regime. What the register covers, why boundaries are contested, and the survey method that actually finds the evidence.
Designing an archaeological field evaluation
An evaluation before determination turns an open-ended archaeological liability into a measured one. Choosing techniques, setting sampling levels, and what positive and negative results mean for the layout.
What a preliminary roost assessment can conclude
A bat inspection can be done any time of year, but the surveys it triggers run only from May to September. What the assessment covers, what its suitability categories mean, and the conclusions it cannot support.
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