PlanScope Blog – Page 307
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 307
8924 articlesUnilateral undertaking: a section 106 the council does not sign
A unilateral undertaking is a planning obligation you give alone, by deed, without the council signing. It binds the land, appears on searches, and cannot require the authority to do anything.
The 30 month plan timetable and plan making gateways
The Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 sets a 30 month target for local plans with independent gateway checks during preparation. Which regime your plan sits under decides how you engage with it.
Class F1 and F2: learning and local community uses
A village shop, a church hall, a school and a playing field all sit outside Class E, so none of them gets the free movement that makes Class E flexible. Here is what each F class covers.
Visibility splays and how x and y distances are set
The splay is a triangle set by two numbers, and the one that decides everything is the recorded speed of traffic rather than the posted limit. That works in both directions.
Buying off site biodiversity units: the process
Units have to match the habitat you are losing, come from registered land, and be formally allocated to your development before the gain plan can be approved. Leaving that until after permission stops sites starting.
Class B loft conversions: measuring the volume allowance
The allowance is 40 cubic metres for a terrace house and 50 for anything else, measured externally against the original roof. Earlier dormers count against it, whoever built them.
Basement drainage: pumped systems and surcharge risk
Basement drainage fails in two directions. Water has to get out against gravity, and sewer water has to be stopped from coming in when the public sewer surcharges.
Reports needed for a livery yard and manege
Grazing horses is agriculture; keeping them is not. That distinction turns a paddock into a material change of use, and the manege drainage and floodlights decide most of these applications.
Local Green Space: the designation and its policy effect
A Local Green Space is protected as if it were Green Belt, and can only be designated while a plan is being prepared or reviewed. Here are the three tests and the evidence that satisfies them.
Protected site strategies and how they change assessment
Natural England can prepare a strategy addressing pressures on a designated site across the whole area they come from. It does not remove the appropriate assessment duty, but it can supply the evidence and the mitigation.
Class E to a hot food takeaway: why it needs permission
The 2020 Use Classes changes pushed hot food takeaways out of the classes altogether. A Class E restaurant cannot become one without an application, and extraction usually decides the outcome.
Choosing TRICS sites and defending the selection
Highway officers go straight to the selection parameters sheet. Which surveys you kept, which you dropped and why decides whether your trip rates survive scrutiny.
The 30 year management obligation in biodiversity net gain
Thirty years is a statutory minimum, not a management aspiration. Getting the legal mechanism, the habitat management plan and the funding right at the start avoids a dispute in year seven.
Assets of community value: what listing does and does not do
Listing under the Localism Act 2011 gives a community group time to bid, not a right to buy. Here is what the moratorium covers, who can nominate, and how much weight a listing carries in a planning decision.
Reports needed for a farm shop and cafe application
A farm shop with a cafe usually needs six or seven supporting documents. Odour, highways and foul drainage decide most of these applications, not the retail policy everyone argues about.
Overland flow routes and exceedance design
Every drainage system has a capacity. Exceedance design decides where water goes once that capacity is passed, and it is resolved on the levels drawing rather than in the hydraulic model.
Small local abattoirs and the planning case for one
Slaughtering is not agriculture in planning law, so no agricultural permitted development right helps. The use class question, the effluent route and the odour case decide most small abattoir applications.
Permitted development on land near an aerodrome
Aerodrome safeguarding cuts the agricultural permitted development height limit from 12 metres to 3 metres within three kilometres of the perimeter, and adds consultation duties for solar, telecoms, lighting and drainage.
Part 20 upward extensions and the classes that allow them
Part 20 contains several classes permitting upward extension, each with different dates and limits. For a landlord, the leasehold structure defeats the right more often than the planning limits do.
Irreplaceable habitats and why the metric cannot trade them
Ancient woodland and the other listed habitats generate no tradeable units. Map them and their buffers before you draw a layout, not after the metric has been run.
Repairs to private ways and unadopted roads
Resurfacing a rutted track between its existing hedges is maintenance. Widening it, extending it or building a new spur is not, and that is where enforcement starts.
Rainwater harvesting in a drainage and water strategy
A harvesting tank cuts mains water use. It does not reliably attenuate, because on the day of the design storm it may already be full. Present it accordingly.
Who applies: tenancies, ownership certificates and notices
You can apply for permission on land you do not own, but not without telling everyone with a qualifying interest. On tenanted farms the agricultural holdings limb is where applications come unstuck.
Reports needed for a rooftop telecoms installation
Part 16 prior approval assesses siting and appearance only. Structural loading, roof access and lease terms sit outside the planning decision, and they are what usually stop a scheme.
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