PlanScope Blog – Page 313
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 313
8874 articlesMatching materials: what similar appearance really allows
Permitted development asks for materials of similar appearance, not an identical match. Format and texture matter more than colour, and mortar matters more than either.
Reports needed for a farm diversification scheme
Diversification is supported in principle. What decides the application is the access, the landscape, the drainage and the noise, and each is evidenced separately.
Less than substantial harm: the heritage balance explained
Almost every heritage case lands in the less than substantial category. The argument worth having is about where within it the harm sits.
Enforcement warning notices and how to respond to one
A warning notice invites a retrospective application rather than ordering anything. The decision it forces is whether your breach is already immune from enforcement.
Solar glare from glazed facades onto roads and railways
Glint and glare from a facade is a safety issue raised by highway and rail bodies. The fix is inexpensive at design stage and costly once the curtain walling is ordered.
Temporary rural worker's dwellings and the three year test
A limited period permission lets a new rural enterprise build a trading record. The council is approving a trial, and the removal condition is meant seriously.
Finding the Air Quality Management Area boundary for a site
Every Air Quality Management Area is declared by its own order naming a pollutant and an objective. Find the order before you commission an assessment.
Refused for missing biodiversity net gain information
Most refusals that mention biodiversity net gain are information failures rather than habitat failures, and those are usually cured faster by resubmitting than by appealing.
Challenging a planning permission and the six week limit
A claim against a planning permission has to be filed within six weeks of the decision, and the pre-action letter does not stop the clock. What the court will and will not consider.
Extending a house with an outbuilding already in the garden
Extensions and garden buildings draw on the same permitted development allowance. Here is how to work out how much of it an existing garage has already used.
Reports needed to demolish and rebuild a single house
Demolishing a house and rebuilding it changes the application type, and with it the biodiversity net gain position, the fee and the levy calculation.
Extension of time agreements on a planning application
An extension of time moves one date and one right. Whether to agree depends almost entirely on whether the officer is heading towards an approval.
The Hillside judgment and overlapping planning permissions
If building out a later permission makes an earlier one impossible to complete, the earlier permission cannot lawfully be finished. What that means for phased schemes and drop-in applications.
Transient overshadowing of allotments and playing fields
Growing ground and sports pitches are judged on whether the land can still do its job, so shadow analysis has to run across the year rather than on one equinox drawing.
The functional and financial tests for a rural worker's home
An isolated home in the countryside for a rural worker has to pass two tests. One asks whether the business needs someone on site at night. The other asks whether it can pay for them.
Using the ancient woodland inventory before a layout is drawn
Ancient woodland is irreplaceable habitat and the standing advice buffer starts at 15 metres. Plot it before the masterplan, not after it has been priced.
Refused for overdevelopment: answering a density objection
A cramped form of development reason bundles coverage, gardens, separation and parking into one phrase. Take it apart and answer each strand with measured evidence.
Call-in by the Secretary of State and what triggers it
Call-in takes the decision away from the council and gives it to a minister after an inquiry. The first sign is usually a holding direction, not the call-in itself.
Dropped kerbs, hardstanding and surface water in one job
The paving and the dropped kerb are decided by different people under different laws. Here is the order to do them in, and what the 5 square metre run-off rule actually says.
Reports needed inside an SSSI impact risk zone
SSSI impact risk zones are a consultation trigger, not a designation. Which reports you need depends on the development categories your particular zone flags.
Non-material amendment: the section 96A power explained
Section 96A lets a council edit a permission you already hold rather than grant a new one. Here is what it can change, how materiality is judged, and the changes it will never cover.
Reports needed for a scheme over 1,000 square metres
Floorspace of 1,000 square metres or more makes a scheme major development in its own right, with a 13-week determination period, newspaper publicity and a mandatory Design and Access Statement.
Best and most versatile agricultural land explained
Grades 1, 2 and 3a of the Agricultural Land Classification are best and most versatile. Provisional mapping does not separate 3a from 3b, so the answer for a real site comes from a survey.
Daylight and sunlight in a section 73 amendment
Varying a condition under section 73 creates a fresh permission, which reopens the daylight and sunlight assessment. Whether the baseline is the existing situation or the consented scheme decides what the numbers mean.
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