PlanScope Blog – Page 314
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 314
8865 articlesRefused over a non-designated heritage asset
Harm to a non-designated heritage asset is weighed in the ordinary planning balance, with no section 66 duty and no great weight direction. Evidence of significance decides most of these appeals.
Revocation and modification orders and the compensation
A council can revoke or modify a permission it has granted under section 97 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Confirmation by the Secretary of State and the compensation liability under section 107 are why it rarely happens.
Garden rooms with a shower and a bed: where the line is
A gym with a shower is incidental. A studio with a bed, a kitchen and a tenant is a separate dwelling. Class E of the GPDO turns on the word incidental, and that is where garden room projects fail.
Reports needed where protected trees stand on the site
Protected trees change the order of work on a site. The BS 5837:2012 survey and constraints plan come before the layout, and the tree consent regime runs alongside the planning application.
Sui generis use: what falls outside the Use Classes Order
Pubs, hot food takeaways, nightclubs and petrol stations sit outside every class of the Use Classes Order. That means no class freedom, almost no permitted development, and an application for nearly every change.
Winter gardens and enclosed balconies in daylight terms
Winter gardens solve an acoustic problem by putting glazing, framing and a soffit in front of a habitable room. The daylight assessment has to carry all three, and the assessment point is the inner window.
Holiday lets, short term rentals and the use class question
A dwellinghouse is Class C3 and short-term letting is not a separate use class in England. Whether permission is needed depends on intensity, occupancy and character, with a 90-night statutory allowance in Greater London.
Checking Article 4 directions in the national dataset
The national planning data service publishes Article 4 directions and their boundaries, but the direction document and the local land charges search are the legal record. Both matter before you buy.
Refused on highway safety: the severe test at appeal
A highways refusal has to clear one of two national policy tests: an unacceptable impact on highway safety, or severe residual cumulative impacts on the road network. Separating them is the start of the appeal case.
Correcting an error in an appeal decision letter
A wrong address or a broken condition cross-reference in an appeal decision can be corrected under sections 56 to 58 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, but only within the same six weeks as a statutory challenge.
Internal alterations and when planning is not engaged
Section 55(2)(a) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 puts works affecting only the interior of a building outside planning control. Four exceptions pull them back in, and listed buildings sit outside the rule entirely.
Reports needed for development next to a listed building
Section 66 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 applies whenever development affects the setting of a listed building, even where the application site is not itself listed. This is how to scope the evidence.
Original dwellinghouse: the 1948 baseline for extensions
The GPDO measures every householder permitted development allowance from the original dwellinghouse, not the house as it stands today. That baseline is fixed at 1 July 1948, or the date of construction if later.
The case officer site visit and what is looked at
The site visit is where the officer checks the drawings against the place. Most of what they record has nothing to do with whether you are standing there.
Removing a bay window and the principal elevation
Taking a bay off the front of a house is development. Class A usually covers it, until an Article 4 direction, a conservation area or a listing gets in the way.
Reports needed to add storeys to an existing block
An upward extension starts with an engineer confirming the building can take the load. After that the pack is shaped by existing occupiers and by the resulting height.
Separation distances between facing windows
No national policy sets a privacy separation distance. Here is where the familiar figures came from and how to argue a scheme that falls below them.
Shop to residential: the routes and their limits
Class MA is cheaper and narrower, a full application is slower and more flexible. Which you use depends mostly on whether the building qualifies at all.
Finding conservation area boundaries in the national dataset
The national dataset is the fastest way to check a conservation area boundary. The council's designation map is the legal one, and on a boundary property that matters.
Challenging an enforcement appeal decision under s289
Section 289 is the route to the High Court against an enforcement appeal decision. It needs permission, it runs to 28 days, and it only reaches errors of law.
Prior approval determination periods and the 56 day rule
Miss the 56 day deadline and the council loses its say. The argument that follows is almost always about whether the application was validly made in the first place.
Bin and bike stores in a front garden
Class E excludes anything forward of the principal elevation, so a front garden bin store needs permission. A low open enclosure may be a different matter.
Reports needed for a basement excavation under a house
A basement needs two sets of documents: the ones that answer the council on water and ground movement, and the party wall notices that are not planning at all.
Obscure glazing: which privacy level to specify
Level 3 satisfies most councils, level 4 or 5 where a window looks straight into a garden. The specification belongs on the drawing, not in a condition written later.
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