PlanScope Blog – Page 354
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 354
8725 articlesData centre planning permission: site, power and cooling
A data centre application is decided on power, noise and water long before it is decided on architecture. Here is how each of those arguments is evidenced.
Housing mix: how councils set unit size policy
Housing mix policy sets the bedroom split a council expects on your site. It comes from a housing needs assessment, and departing from it takes site-specific evidence rather than a preference.
Telecoms mast or rooftop antenna: the Part 16 route
Most mobile network development in England is permitted by Part 16 of the GPDO, subject to a 56 day prior approval on siting and appearance. Health objections carry no weight once an ICNIRP declaration is supplied.
Bin storage requirements for flat conversions
Refuse storage is one of the most common reasons a flat conversion is refused or held up at validation. The standards sit in the council's waste guidance, not the local plan.
Which reports for a shop to restaurant change of use
A shop and a restaurant both sit in Class E, so the use change alone is not development. The application, when there is one, is about the extraction flue and what comes out of it.
Vacant building credit: the affordable housing offset
The vacant building credit deducts the floorspace of an existing vacant building from the affordable housing calculation. The fight is almost always about whether the building counts as vacant.
Parking stress surveys: the Lambeth methodology explained
Councils asking for parking stress evidence usually mean an overnight beat survey run to the Lambeth methodology. Here is how the survey is set up, counted and presented.
Council highway standards: access widths and visibility splays
A new access stands or falls on visibility. The X and Y dimensions come from measured speeds and local design guidance, and the splay land has to be within your control.
Which reports Class MA office to flats prior approval needs
A council can only refuse Class MA prior approval on the matters the Order lists. Evidence each one and the application is hard to refuse. Assert them and it is easy.
Shopfront alterations and signage: the consents you need
Three regimes meet at a shopfront. Advertisement control considers only amenity and public safety, planning covers the physical alterations, and listed building consent is never deemed.
Residual land value: the arithmetic behind viability
Value of the finished scheme, less costs, less the developer's return, equals what the land can bear. The dispute is never about the formula, always about the inputs.
Lead local flood authority comments on your drainage
Most holding objections from a lead local flood authority come from missing evidence, not unworkable engineering. Infiltration testing, calculations and exceedance routing clear the majority.
Fallback position in planning and the real prospect test
The fallback argument shifts the comparison from the existing situation to a lawful alternative. Its weight turns on whether that alternative has a real prospect of being implemented.
Reports for 12 homes on a greenfield village-edge site
Crossing ten units changes the determination period, the consultees and the affordable housing position. On a village edge the landscape and heritage evidence decides the rest.
Mezzanine floors: when installation needs permission
Section 55(2A) makes a retail mezzanine over 200 square metres development in its own right. Any mezzanine needs permission where it amounts to a material change of use.
Council ecologists and who checks your BNG submission
Biodiversity net gain submissions are reviewed by in-house or shared-service ecologists. The gain plan is approved after permission and before commencement, which is where programmes slip.
Reports for one new dwelling in Flood Zone 2
In Flood Zone 2 a dwelling is more vulnerable development and is appropriate, so the exception test does not apply. The work is the site-specific assessment, the sequential test and the drainage.
Waste transfer station and scrapyard planning permission
Waste and metal recycling sites need permission from the waste planning authority and a permit from the Environment Agency. The permit does not answer the planning objections on dust, noise and amenity.
Enabling development: funding heritage repair with new build
Enabling development is an open departure from policy, granted to fund the repair of a heritage asset. It stands or falls on an evidenced conservation deficit and a quantum sized to it.
Conservation officers: what they check and when
Conservation officers apply the statutory duties in sections 66 and 72 of the 1990 Act. Their consultation response usually sets the recommendation, and you can read what they said about your neighbours first.
Which reports a garden annexe for a parent needs
An annexe that is ancillary to the house is a householder application with a short document set. A separate dwelling brings CIL, biodiversity net gain and a full application.
Self-storage and trade counter units: planning permission
Self-storage is normally Class B8, so the question is employment land policy and access. A trade counter is harder, because public sales can tip the use into retail.
Non-designated heritage assets and the local list
Local listing creates no new consent requirement. It creates a balanced judgement on the scale of harm against the asset's significance, and that judgement turns on the evidence you supply.
Local government reorganisation and your planning application
A new unitary authority inherits several local plans, several validation lists and several design guides. The plan for your site is the one adopted by the predecessor district containing the land.
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