PlanScope Blog – Page 315
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 315
8860 articlesReports needed for a ground mounted solar farm
Solar farm refusals cite loss of best and most versatile land and landscape harm. Here is the report pack that answers both, plus the technical work consultees ask for.
Single aspect north facing flats and amenity policy
No rule bans single aspect north facing flats, which is why they are argued on judgement. Here is how to reduce the count and evidence the units that remain.
Sui generis after 2020: the full list and what it means
Pubs, takeaways, cinemas and live music venues left the use class system in September 2020. Here is the full sui generis list and what it means for a change of use.
Using MAGIC to check designations around a site
Twenty minutes on the Defra MAGIC map tells you which statutory designations touch your site, and which datasets you still have to check somewhere else.
Costs awards on planning appeals for unreasonable behaviour
An appeal costs award turns on unreasonable behaviour that caused wasted expense, not on who won. Here is how inspectors apply the test and how to build the application.
Withdrawing a planning application and what it costs you
Withdrawal is a one line letter, but it ends the appeal right and the fee is normally spent. Here is how to weigh it against taking the refusal.
Solar panels on a house under Part 14 of the GPDO
Class A of Part 14 allows solar panels on most houses, but the 200 millimetre projection limit and the protected land wall restriction catch a lot of installations.
Reports needed for a self storage facility
Self storage applications turn on the use class claimed, the employment land case and the traffic and noise customers generate. Here is the document pack councils expect.
Waste Management Strategy: storage, collection and swept paths
A Waste Management Strategy is an operational document about the building in use. Here is how to size the store, set the carry distance and prove the refuse vehicle can reach it.
Assessing daylight inside your own proposed flats
The neighbour case argues from a baseline. The internal case has none. Here is how to test the flats you are proposing, and how to report the rooms that fall short.
Conditions that survived the 2020 use class reforms
Class E released units that were unconditioned. It released almost nothing that was tied by condition, and that is usually discovered after an offer is made.
Finding the right climate change allowance for a catchment
Every climate change figure in a flood risk assessment should trace back to a named table on a stated date. Here is how to find the catchment, epoch and band.
The planning register and how to read an application file
The register is a statutory record under article 40 of the 2015 Order. Here is how to search it, what councils redact and why, and how to read a live case file.
Contamination Phase 1 or Phase 2: what triggers the dig
Phase 1 asks whether a source, a pathway and a receptor connect. If they plausibly do, Phase 2 goes into the ground. The trigger decides a five-figure cost.
Juliet balconies against full balconies in Class A terms
The line is whether there is somewhere outside the wall to stand. Guarding across a first-floor opening is usually permitted development, and a balcony always needs permission.
Reports needed for a place of worship
A whole week of activity in one or two hours drives every objection. Here is the attendance, parking, dispersal and accessibility evidence a worship application needs.
The construction phase sections of a management plan
A construction management plan gets approved on its numbers. Vehicle movements by phase, hours by activity, dust trigger levels and predicted noise at the nearest façade.
Rooms lit only by a rooflight and the daylight tests
A rooflight has no vertical plane, so the familiar BRE tests do not apply. Here is the assessment route for top-lit rooms, and the modelling assumptions reviewers look for.
Dog day care and grooming: which use class applies
The Use Classes Order says nothing about animals. Working out which activity you actually run, grooming or day care or boarding, decides whether you need permission and what evidence goes with it.
Checking surface water flood risk on the long term service
Surface water risk never appears on the Flood Map for Planning. Here is how to read the bands, get the depth and velocity layers, and use the result in a householder drainage statement.
Agricultural holdings notices on a planning application
The council cannot entertain a farm application until the agricultural holdings certificate is provided. Who counts as a tenant, how to serve notice, and what a tenant can actually do.
LVIA or Townscape and Visual Impact Assessment
Landscape and townscape assessments share one methodology and differ in four places: the baseline, the receptors, how viewpoints get agreed, and what cumulative means.
Loft conversions in a bungalow and the volume trap
Class B allows no part of the roof to exceed the existing ridge, and gives 50 cubic metres in total. On a wide hipped bungalow, two hip to gable ends and a dormer go straight past it.
Reports needed for a gym in a former retail unit
A shop is Class E(a) and a gym is Class E(d), so the use change is not development. The work is in the acoustics of dropped weights, the plant, the car park and the hours.
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