PlanScope Blog – Page 330
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 330
8731 articlesCurtilage listing: which structures are covered
A stable block nobody thinks is listed can be listed. The 1948 date and a three part test decide it, and getting the answer wrong is a criminal matter.
Assessing surface water flood risk from the national map
The national surface water map is a screening tool, not a site model. Used properly it tells you where water crosses the site and what the drainage strategy has to do about it.
Penalties for damaging or destroying a protected tree
Cutting down a protected tree is a criminal offence, and the court is required to consider what the defendant gained by it. The replanting duty then runs with the land.
Checking the extent of adopted highway before you design
The adopted extent decides where you can build, who owns the verge and whether your visibility splay is secure. Establish it before the layout, not after.
Local Wildlife Sites and the weight they carry
Local Wildlife Sites have no statutory protection and still stop schemes. Here is where their weight comes from and how to scope the evidence properly.
Agricultural to equestrian: why it is a change of use
Equestrian use falls outside the definition of agriculture in section 336. That single point decides the application, and it also removes agricultural permitted development from the holding.
Glamping and camping: the routes to a lawful site
Three routes lead to a lawful campsite and they suit different businesses. The wrong one leaves a rural owner with an enforcement notice and a season's lost income.
Listed building consent for internal alterations
Listing covers the inside of the building as much as the outside. Here is where the section 7 threshold falls, and the evidence that gets an internal scheme approved.
Flood resistance and resilience a council will condition
Resistance keeps water out to a limited depth. Resilience accepts it in and speeds the drying out. Councils condition both, and the wording decides who maintains them.
How retained trees count towards biodiversity net gain
Trees enter the statutory metric as area, derived from size class and condition. Retaining them protects the baseline. Only planting and condition change move the number.
Refuse vehicle access and swept path drawings
Refuse access quietly decides the shape of most small housing layouts. This covers carry distances, turning heads, tracking drawings and how to fix a layout that fails.
SSSI Impact Risk Zones and Natural England consultation
Impact Risk Zones sit well outside SSSI boundaries and catch far more small sites than owners expect. Here is how to read them and what to submit.
Conditions that tie a use to one class or occupier
A condition can shut down the flexibility the Use Classes Order gives you. Here is how to spot one on a decision notice, when it is lawful, and the routes to getting it lifted.
Equestrian development: where the use changes
Grazing horses keeps land agricultural. Keeping them does not. This guide sets out where the line falls, which structures count as operational development, and what to submit.
Abandonment: how a lawful use can be lost
Non-use does not by itself end a lawful use. But condition, duration, intervening use and intention together can, and the loss is permanent.
Part 6: agricultural development on units of 5 hectares or more
Agricultural permitted development is generous and hedged with conditions. Here are the area, height and proximity limits, and how the prior notification actually works.
Farm diversification: making the planning case
Policy supports diversifying a farm business. What decides applications is whether the enterprise fits the buildings, the lanes and the landscape it sits in.
Safe access and egress in a flood event
A scheme can have floor levels well above the flood and still fail on access. The assessment is about people leaving, arriving and being reached during the event.
Compensation claims after a refusal under a tree order
The tree preservation regime carries a compensation right, and almost nobody uses it. Here is what can be claimed, what cannot, and the evidence a claim needs.
Junction modelling outputs a highway officer will check
A junction model is only as good as its base year and its assumptions log. Here is what a highway officer checks first and where submitted models usually fail.
Nutrient neutrality catchments and what they require
In an affected catchment a council cannot grant permission for overnight accommodation until nutrient neutrality is demonstrated. The duty comes from habitats law, not planning policy.
Enforcement time limits for change of use after the 2023 Act
Which immunity period applies depends on when the breach began. The transitional position matters more than the headline rule, and continuity is what has to be proved.
The 28 day rule: temporary use of land under Part 4
The 28 day rule is more limited than its reputation. It excludes buildings and their curtilage, caps some uses at 14 days, and counts days across the whole planning unit.
Isolated homes in the countryside: the exceptional design route
This is the hardest route to a house in open countryside. It asks for architecture that raises standards across rural areas, not a well-detailed large house.
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