PlanScope Blog – Page 360
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 360
8682 articlesRear dormer design in a conservation area
There is no volume allowance to work within. A dormer in a conservation area is assessed against the section 72 duty, which makes roof geometry the whole argument.
Mode share targets in a Travel Plan and how to evidence them
Most travel plan targets fail review because they have no baseline and no consequence. Four elements make a target a highway officer will accept.
Farm shop planning permission and the diversification test
A trestle table of your own potatoes is agriculture. A barn selling bought-in goods is a shop. Where a farm shop sits on that spectrum decides the whole application.
PTAL: public transport accessibility level in London
PTAL measures proximity to stops and service frequency. It says nothing about where the services go, which is why the band alone rarely answers a committee question.
Conservation area appraisals: using them to justify your design
The council wrote the appraisal and will read your application against it. The useful material sits past the historical section, in the townscape analysis and the negative features.
Porches: the 3 square metre rule and where it goes wrong
Three numbers decide whether a porch is permitted development. External measurement and the two-metre highway rule remove the rights from most urban front gardens. Here is how to check yours.
Flood Risk Assessment or Drainage Strategy: what goes where
The flood risk assessment covers risk to the site, the drainage strategy covers what leaves it. Here is how to split the scope, avoid contradictions and anticipate the conditions each consultee asks for.
Swimming pool planning permission: indoor and outdoor
The pool is rarely the problem. The plant room, the enclosure, the trees and the backwash are. Here is what Class E covers, where it stops, and what a council will ask for.
Benchmark land value in a viability assessment
Most viability disputes are arguments about benchmark land value. Here is what the figure represents, how existing use value plus a premium is derived, when alternative use value is admissible, and what a reviewer tests.
Planning fees: working out what you owe before you submit
Councils cannot vary the national fee schedule, but the category, the measurement basis and the date of the schedule all change what you pay. Here is how to work it out before you submit.
Hip-to-gable loft conversions: when permitted development stops
A hip-to-gable uses more of the Class B volume allowance than most people expect, and the house type that suits the form is often the one with the smaller limit.
Modules A1 to A5 in a Whole Life Carbon Assessment
Upfront carbon is the part of the assessment a planning decision can still influence. Here is what each module covers and where reviewers find weak assumptions.
Equestrian planning permission: stables, menage and horses
Section 336 treats grazing as agriculture, but horses kept for riding are a different use of the land. That distinction decides most equestrian applications.
Air Quality Management Area: what it means for you
An AQMA is a formal declaration that an air quality objective is not being met. Inside one, expect an assessment requirement and close scrutiny of your traffic assumptions.
Basement planning policy: what London boroughs require
There is no basement policy in the London Plan. The controls come from borough local plans and basement SPDs, and they shape the excavation before they shape the design.
Outbuilding size and height limits under Class E
Six numbers and one condition decide whether a garden building is permitted development. Here is how to calculate curtilage coverage, which height limit applies to which roof, and the traps in conservation areas.
Sequential and exception tests: what each one must prove
Two separate documents answering two separate questions. Here is how to define the search area, evidence reasonably available sites, and address both limbs of the exception test.
Caravan and residential park home site planning permission
Permission authorises the use, a site licence regulates the layout, and the licence cannot be issued without the permission. Here is how the two consents fit together and why flood risk decides so many rural caravan applications.
Agent of change: who pays to mitigate the noise conflict
Build flats next to a venue and the flats carry the mitigation. Here is where the principle sits in national and London policy, what mitigation it buys, and the three limits operators should know about.
How to object to a neighbour's planning application
An objection counts when it raises a material consideration, ties it to an adopted policy and gives the officer evidence. Here is what is material, what is not, and how to write the letter.
The 45-degree rule and how officers apply it to extensions
The 45-degree line is a screening device in council design guides, not national policy. Knowing how it is drawn tells you which part of the extension has to move.
VSC, NSL and ADF in a Daylight and Sunlight Assessment
VSC answers the blocked-window objection, no sky line answers the dark-back-room objection, and internal illuminance answers whether your own flats will be liveable.
Creating a new vehicular access onto a rural lane
A rural access application turns on whether a driver emerging from the gateway can see far enough along the lane. The surfacing, gates and hedge all follow from that.
Source Protection Zone: groundwater and your site
Source protection zones are modelled on groundwater travel time to a drinking water borehole. They rarely stop a scheme, but they often rewrite the drainage strategy.
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