PlanScope Blog – Page 293
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 293
9042 articlesCertificate B: serving notice on a landowner
If anyone else owns part of your application site, Certificate A is wrong. Here is what Certificate B requires, how notice is served and what a false certificate risks.
Brownfield land registers and what being on one means
Every English council keeps a brownfield land register. A Part 1 entry is evidence; a Part 2 entry is a consent that settles location, use and amount for five years.
Drafting a design and access statement an officer can use
The statutory content of a design and access statement is shorter than most practices assume. Here is what the order requires, what validation lists add and what officers read.
Heritage competence and conservation accreditation
Heritage statements have no protected authorship, yet councils reject those written by people who cannot assess significance. Here is where the competence line falls.
Affordable housing tenure split and how it is negotiated
The tenure split decides how much an affordable housing requirement actually costs. Here is where the mix comes from, how registered provider appetite changes it and how it is drafted.
Local review bodies and planning appeals in Scotland
In Scotland, an officer refusal goes to the council's local review body and a committee refusal goes to Ministers. Both carry a three month deadline and a restriction on new evidence.
Trip rate evidence for a transport statement
Trip rate work is judged on site selection, not arithmetic. Here is how to filter comparable surveys, agree the method with the highway authority and set out rates an officer can check.
Land contamination phase 1 against phase 2
A phase 1 preliminary risk assessment is research and a walkover. Phase 2 is boreholes and laboratory analysis. The conceptual site model decides whether you need the second one.
Which reports a rooftop extension to flats needs
Upward extensions to blocks of flats sit between Part 20 prior approval and full planning. Here is the evidence base each route needs, and what changes at 18 metres.
Root protection area: how the zone is calculated
The root protection area is a circle of 12 times the stem diameter, capped at 707 square metres. Here is how it is measured, when it can be reshaped and what it does to a layout.
Proposal of Application Notices in Scotland
A statutory precondition with no English equivalent. The 12 week period, the newspaper advert, the community councils and the report that has to evidence it all.
Checking public rights of way before fixing a layout
A footpath across the site cannot be built over or informally moved. Where the definitive map lives, what it does not show, and how diversion orders actually run.
Historic building recording against a heritage statement
One goes in with the application to argue the case. The other is produced under condition, before anything is touched, for an archive rather than a case officer.
Which reports an EV charging hub needs
Chargers in an existing car park are often permitted development. A hub with its own transformer is not, and the noise from that transformer decides the application.
The duty to have regard to heritage assets in decisions
A statutory duty is weighed differently from a policy consideration. What sections 16, 66 and 72 require, which assets the 2023 Act brings in, and the order to argue it.
Factual errors to look for in a drafted planning document
The writing can be clean while the site area is wrong and the policy reference no longer exists. Where factual errors cluster, and the check that catches them.
Who can author a Fire Statement at Gateway One
Article 9A sets the trigger, the form sets the agenda, and the Building Safety Regulator reads the result. What competence looks like, and where late statements fail.
Section 278 works or a section 106 contribution
One is a construction project on someone else's asset, the other is a payment. Which applies, who you contract with, and the costs behind the headline figure.
Householder permitted development in Scotland explained
Scotland rewrote its householder rights around measured dimensions. The classes, the curtilage coverage test and the certificate that proves your position.
Establishing site levels from survey and elevation data
Open elevation data gets you to a feasibility answer. It does not get you to a submission where a level change matters. What to use, when to survey, what to draw.
Preliminary roost assessment against emergence survey
The daytime inspection grades your roof. The dusk surveys can only happen in season, so getting the first one done early is what keeps a loft conversion on programme.
Planning permission for a glamping or caravan site
Pods, tents and cabins fall under three different regimes. Work out which one your units are in, then design the layout to the licence standards from the start.
Which reports a petrol filling station needs
Buried tanks and the groundwater beneath them drive the evidence base for a filling station. What councils and the Environment Agency will ask for, and why.
Pavement licences after the 2023 Act changes
The pavement licence covers removable furniture on the highway, not decks, canopies or a change of use. What the 2023 Act changed and what councils condition.
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