PlanScope Blog – Page 298
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 298
8997 articlesRelevant buildings: the 18 metre and seven storey test
A fire statement is required for relevant buildings at 18 metres or seven storeys. Here is where the datum sits, which storeys are excluded, and how podium schemes are treated.
Daylight assessment for an outline application
An outline permission grants the parameter envelope, not the illustrative masterplan. Here is how to model the worst case, draft the parameters and carry the assessment to reserved matters.
Energy work on a listed building and the consent needed
Listed building consent is needed for most energy work that touches historic fabric. Here is what is usually accepted, what is resisted, and the evidence a conservation officer expects.
Woodland management plans and the felling they authorise
An approved woodland management plan carries felling permissions for ten years. Here is what the plan must contain, how restocking obligations work, and which operations still need planning permission.
SOAEL and LOAEL: what the noise policy statement means
National noise policy sets effect levels rather than numbers. Here is what LOAEL and SOAEL mean, how values are derived from the standards, and where assessments go wrong.
Hedgerow planting as linear habitat in the metric
Hedgerows have their own module in the biodiversity metric, measured in metres. Here is how condition is scored, why enhancement usually beats new planting, and what to specify.
Where the environmental permit ends and planning begins
Planning decides whether an operation belongs in that location. The permit decides how it runs. Here is how to write the split into an application and avoid conditions that duplicate.
Tree risk assessment and the occupier duty of care
Tree safety duties are judged on the system, not on hindsight about one failed limb. Here is how to zone a site, set intervals, choose inspectors and record decisions defensibly.
Otters and holts: survey, protection and works near water
Otter resting places are protected whether or not an animal is present. Here is how surveys are done, which works trigger an offence, and how licensing and mitigation fit a construction programme.
Translocating species-rich grassland: turf, soil and aftercare
Moving species-rich grassland is mitigation of last resort. Here is how donor and receptor sites are assessed, which lifting method suits which profile, and what the metric does with the result.
Biodiversity net gain on small sites and the exemptions
Biodiversity net gain reaches schemes of a single dwelling. Here are the small site thresholds, the four exemptions that come up most often, and the order the gain plan has to follow.
Biodiversity net gain on outline and phased applications
Phased schemes need an overall biodiversity gain plan plus a plan for each phase, all measured against a baseline fixed at the outline application date. Here is how to set that up.
The 0.5 hectare rule: when site area makes you major
Site area alone can push a small housing scheme into the major category. Here is how the 0.5 hectare limb works, what belongs inside the red line, and what changes once you are major.
Balconies and their effect on daylight to the room behind
A balcony is an obstruction the building imposes on itself. Inset forms cost the most daylight, and the modelling assumptions behind the soffit are where reviewers look first.
Air source heat pumps: planning limits and noise assessment
Most domestic heat pumps go in under permitted development, subject to conditions including a noise standard. The limits have changed more than once, so check the current Order.
Dark skies policy in National Landscapes and National Parks
In a dark sky reserve the post-curfew limits are effectively nil and upward light is not permitted at all. That rules out most off-the-shelf security lighting before the design starts.
Traditional orchards as a priority habitat
A neglected orchard with hollowing apple trees is a priority habitat, not waste ground. That changes the survey, the metric and the planning argument on a farm diversification scheme.
Trading rules in the statutory biodiversity metric
Trading rules stop a scheme replacing a species-rich grassland with amenity lawn and calling it a gain. They bind before any arithmetic about units happens.
Funeral director planning permission: use class and plant
A funeral director on a high street is usually Class E. Add a mortuary, refrigeration and a preparation room and the application starts to look like light industry to an environmental health officer.
What a reviewer checks in a drafted heritage statement
A reviewer reads a heritage statement backwards from its conclusion. If the significance assessment cannot support the harm judgement, nothing else in the document saves it.
The Health and Safety Executive as a planning consultee
At Gateway One the Building Safety Regulator comments on fire safety matters a planning decision can influence. The response is advice, not a veto, and the timing is what catches developers out.
Daylight inside the proposed development: assessing new flats
Internal daylight is a separate assessment from neighbour impact, measured against target illuminance over a fraction of the room. Room depth and window head height decide most results.
How far a local plan can go beyond Building Regulations
Local plans can set energy standards above Building Regulations, but the statutory basis is narrower than it looks and ministerial statements pull the other way.
Designing dark corridors for bats in a lighting scheme
A dark corridor is a design output, not an aspiration. It needs an illuminance figure at the hedge line, a luminaire specification that delivers it, and a condition that keeps it there.
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