PlanScope Blog – Page 4
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 4
8377 articlesTransfer prices for affordable units and how they are set
The price a registered provider pays for affordable units is fixed in the section 106 agreement. The mechanism chosen decides who carries build cost inflation and whether the units ever transfer.
Habitable basements in a flood zone and the sequential approach
Basement dwellings sit in the highly vulnerable class in flood risk policy. That decides which zones they are possible in, which tests apply and what the flood risk assessment has to prove.
Setting up a daylight model that survives scrutiny
Reflectances, room depths and baselines decide whether a daylight assessment can be relied on. Here is how to set the assumptions and document them for a reviewer.
Dormer bungalow to two storeys under Class AA
An illustrative walkthrough of an upward extension to a 1960s dormer bungalow under Class AA, from the build date gateway to the daylight study that settled the neighbour's objection.
Reports for a mosque in a converted warehouse
A warehouse-to-mosque change of use stands or falls on the Friday peak. Here is how to build the parking, highway, noise and capacity evidence a case officer will test.
How full application fees are calculated by units and area
Dwellings are charged per unit, other buildings on floorspace created, outline applications on site area. Mixed schemes add the categories together rather than merging them.
Nursery in a vacant retail unit: an illustrative walkthrough
A former shop became a 64 place nursery with no permission needed for the use. The play space, the drop-off regime and the kitchen extract needed the work.
Reports for a veterinary hospital with overnight care
Overnight care changes the use class question and the evidence base. Animal noise at night is the issue that refuses these applications, and it needs structural mitigation.
Local nature recovery strategies in planning decisions
A strategy changes the unit value of habitat through the metric and is a material consideration in its own right. It is not a designation and not development plan policy.
Solar farm on grade 3b land: an illustrative walkthrough
Grade 3b is not best and most versatile land, and provisional mapping cannot establish it. A detailed classification survey shaped every other part of this scheme.
Self-build registers: eligibility, fees and what they achieve
Registration gives no right to a plot. It adds to a demand figure authorities must have regard to, and that figure is what shapes plan policies on self-build plots.
Reading a delegated report and finding the weak point
The delegated report is where you find out how your objection was treated. Omissions show up in the representations summary and the policy list, not in the assessment.
Spotting invented case law in a planning document
A fabricated citation looks right. The two failures are a reference that does not exist and a real case cited for something it does not say. The second slips through more often.
Nomination agreements and the affordable housing condition
The section 106 says how many affordable units. The nomination agreement says who lives in them. Developers who find out late find out two weeks before occupation.
Battery storage fire risk at the planning stage
Separation, firewater and containment set the layout of a battery storage site. The fire and rescue response is the consultation that decides these applications.
Outlook and the tunnel effect in a narrow infill scheme
A scheme can pass every BRE daylight criterion and still be refused on enclosure. Outlook is judged from sections, and the argument rests on how the relationship is drawn.
A listed barn repair and conversion in sequence
A Grade II threshing barn needing listed building consent and planning permission. The bats set the programme, and the specification decided the heritage case.
Where the 21 metre separation guideline comes from
No statute contains the 21 metre separation distance. It comes from early 20th century housing layout advice and survives in council design guidance, with varying weight.
The limits of a desk-based heritage statement
Significance sits in the fabric, so it has to be inspected. Desk work can carry the duties, the asset inventory and the methodology, but never the assessment itself.
Does paying for pre-application advice pay for itself
Pre-application advice pays when the answer could change the scheme. Where the policy position is already clear, the fee buys a letter restating what you knew.
EV charging in enclosed car parks and the fire case
Charging provision is required by building regulations and local policy. Enclosed parking makes a battery fire harder to fight. The layout has to solve both at planning stage.
Privacy distances between windows and the 21 metre convention
The 21 metre separation is a design guide figure, not law. How councils word it, how oblique angles and levels change it, and what to submit when it is not met.
Farm diversification: an illustrative glamping site application
Six safari tents on a mixed farm, and the three things that decided the application: the temporary use right, the drainage field and the lane. An illustrative walkthrough.
Objecting as a parish or town council: process and weight
A parish objection carries procedural weight but is not binding. What decides its effect is timing, planning reasons and whether it was properly resolved by the council.
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