PlanScope Blog – Page 34
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 34
9585 articlesNoise complaints after permission: nuisance or condition breach
Planning enforcement asks whether a condition has been broken. Environmental health asks whether the noise is unreasonable. The tests differ, the teams differ, and complainants are often sent between them.
Fire appliance access and the planning layout
A pump appliance needs 3.7 metres between kerbs, a 16.8 metre turning circle and a 12.5 tonne surface. Those dimensions shape the layout, and nobody with fire expertise is required to check it before permission.
Mill conversions: floor loadings and historic structure
Mills were built for machinery, so capacity is rarely the binding constraint. Serviceability, decayed bearings, the absence of tying and the dead load of acoustic build-ups are what shape the works.
Commuted payments in lieu of on-site affordable housing
A commuted sum is the gap between open market value and what a registered provider would pay. The method the authority uses changes the answer more than the inputs do.
Part 3 Class S: farm buildings to a school or nursery
Class S of the GPDO allows an agricultural building to change use to a state-funded school or registered nursery, subject to prior approval. It permits no building works at all, which ends most projects.
Taking over a unit with a personal planning permission
Planning permission normally runs with the land, but a personal condition ties the use to a named occupier. Check the decision notice before you sign, and plan for a section 73 application.
Flood risk in Scotland: SEPA's role and the policy test
Scotland assesses flood risk against the 0.5% annual probability event for both river and coastal sources, with SEPA advising and NPF4 setting the policy test. There are no numbered flood zones.
Density and the shift from houses to flats
The move from houses to flats is not a policy threshold. It is the point at which parking, private amenity space and refuse carry distances stop fitting, and the typology has to change to deliver the units.
Air conditioning units on a house or flat: the planning rules
There is no permitted development class for air conditioning, so an external condenser on a house usually needs permission and on a flat almost always does. Siting and noise evidence decide the outcome.
Section 70C: declining to determine a retrospective application
Once an enforcement notice has been issued, section 70C of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 lets a council refuse to consider a retrospective application for the same breach. The order in which you act decides which routes survive.
Swimming pools and pool buildings in a garden
Class E of Part 1 expressly covers swimming pools within the curtilage of a house. The complications are the enclosure, the plant noise, the backwash water and designated land.
Balconies, terraces and raised platforms
A balcony, verandah or raised platform is expressly outside householder permitted development rights, so permission is needed. The case is won or lost on the overlooking assessment.
BREEAM Excellent as a planning condition: the commitments
Accepting a BREEAM Excellent condition locks in design decisions made at planning stage and a post-construction certificate years later. Negotiate the wording before permission, not after.
Noise from gyms, studios and leisure uses in a terrace
In a terraced or mixed use building the gym noise case is about impact and structure borne transmission, not plant. Dropped weights and low frequency music are what the neighbours hear.
Levy offsets for demolished floorspace and the in-use test
The deduction for existing and demolished floorspace can remove most of a levy bill, but only where the building was in lawful use for six continuous months within the preceding three years.
Trip rate reductions for a sustainable location
Claiming lower car trip rates because a site is accessible is the most contested line in a transport assessment. Tie the adjustment to named data, committed measures and a sensitivity test.
Structural intervention in a tithe barn or great barn
In a large historic timber-framed barn, the choice between repairing the frame in timber and inserting steel is the decision that consent turns on. It is made member by member, not scheme-wide.
Part 9 and 10: repairs to private ways and to services
The GPDO allows works to maintain or improve an existing private way and to repair buried services. The line between that and a new engineering operation is where enforcement cases start.
Opening a nursery or day care in a commercial unit
A day nursery falls within the E(f) limb of Class E, which means a change from retail or office use is often not development at all. The works, the play area and the drop-off peak are where permission bites.
Permitted development for Scottish householders: the classes
Scotland only. Householder permitted development in Scotland sits in the 1992 General Permitted Development Order, with classes and tests built differently from the English Part 1.
Energy and overheating evidence as unit numbers rise
Energy, overheating and carbon evidence moves from a Building Regulations exercise to a planning submission requirement at predictable scheme sizes. Here is where each step happens.
Chimney removal, flues and roof alterations
Roof alterations fall under Class C of Part 1, which excludes chimneys and flues. Those sit in Class G with a one metre height rule and tighter limits on designated land.
Drafted construction management plans and the highway input
A drafted construction management plan gets you a usable framework. The routing, the swept paths and the highway licences are decided by people with local knowledge you cannot draft around.
Pre-redevelopment audits and what they have to record
A pre-redevelopment audit inventories the materials and components in a building before demolition or refurbishment, and identifies the reuse routes. It is not a site waste management plan.
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