PlanScope Blog – Page 329
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 329
8736 articlesAffordable housing thresholds and small site exemptions
Below major development, affordable housing contributions should not be sought, except in designated rural areas. How the rural threshold, vacant building credit and viability work.
Appropriate development in the Green Belt on a farm
Buildings for agriculture are not inappropriate development in the Green Belt. What that covers, what it does not, and how extensions, replacements and diversification are tested.
Written scheme of investigation: what it must contain
The WSI turns an archaeological condition into a programme with a method and an end point. What it must contain, who approves it and why archive deposition is the hard part.
The SuDS treatment train explained for planning applications
Officers test drainage strategies against the treatment train and the four pillars. How the stages work, how components are matched to pollution hazard and where space comes from.
Long term tree management secured by planning agreement
A condition cannot require payment or bind a management company for 30 years. How landscape maintenance obligations are drafted, funded and enforced.
Parking standards: evidencing provision above or below policy
Maximum standards, accessibility zones and the evidence that justifies departing from them. Census car ownership, overnight parking surveys and permit exclusions.
Tree Preservation Orders: area orders against individual trees
A Tree Preservation Order can name one tree or cover everything standing in an area on a given date. The four classifications, how to check yours and what consent involves.
Evidence pack for a change of use application
Change of use applications stall at validation more often than they fail on planning merits. The documents that prove the existing use and answer environmental health first.
Part 14 Class J: solar on non-domestic roofs
Commercial rooftop solar runs through Class J of Part 14, with a prior approval on design and glare. The dimensional limits, the glare study and the substation nobody budgets for.
The 0.5 hectare site area threshold explained
The 0.5 hectare limb of the major development definition applies only where the number of dwellings is not known. How to measure the site area and what it changes.
Brownfield runoff betterment: how much reduction is expected
The national standards require improvement rather than restoration on brownfield sites. How to prove the existing positive drainage rate and what the local percentage really means.
Poultry and livestock units: screening for environmental impact
Almost every commercial poultry shed is Schedule 2 development, so the screening opinion decides the scheme. How ammonia, permitting and odour evidence fit together.
Less than substantial harm and the public benefits balance
Less than substantial harm covers everything short of the very serious end, so treating it as a synonym for minor is the commonest error. How to run the balance so it survives challenge.
Retained trees and daylight to habitable rooms
Retaining a mature tree on the southern boundary protects amenity and shades the nearest house. How BRE 209 treats vegetation and how to design the conflict out.
Access onto a national speed limit rural road
Visibility at 60 miles per hour needs distances most field boundaries cannot deliver. How to survey speeds, size the splay and deal with hedgerow removal and gate set-backs.
Town and village greens: the registration risk to a site
Registration as a town or village green happens outside the planning system and is close to irreversible. The section 15 test, the trigger events that block it and how to deposit a landowner statement.
Offices to laboratories: Class E flexibility in practice
Offices and research and development both sit within Class E(g), so the use change is not development. The old occupancy condition and the rooftop plant are what need an application.
Solar panels on houses: Part 14 Classes A and B
Class A covers panels on a roof, Class B a stand-alone array in the garden. The dimensional limits, the two standing conditions and where listed building consent still bites.
What changes when a scheme reaches 10 dwellings
Ten dwellings is the bright line between minor and major development. Here is what changes in the determination period, publicity, affordable housing policy and the evidence base.
Slurry store planning: permitted development and odour
Part 6 of the GPDO covers many farm slurry stores, but not within 400 metres of a protected building. The odour, water protection and access evidence a full application needs.
Solar farms on farmland: the land quality argument
Provisional land quality mapping does not separate grade 3a from 3b, and that distinction decides solar applications. Survey early or lose a season.
Setting of a heritage asset: the staged assessment
Setting is not the view of the asset. It is the surroundings in which it is experienced, and the assessment has to work through significance before it reaches effect.
Calculating greenfield runoff rates for a drainage strategy
The greenfield rate is the benchmark every discharge is judged against. Most holding objections come from the inputs, not the method.
Specifying crown works councils will accept
Most applications for works to protected trees are refused for vagueness. A measurable specification with a reason attached gets consent.
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