PlanScope Blog – Page 40
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 40
9574 articlesReptile presence or absence survey effort
Seven visits in suitable conditions, refuges bedded in for a fortnight, and a refuge plan that follows the habitat. What adequate reptile survey effort looks like, and how to spot thin effort in a report.
Decking, terraces and the 300 millimetre platform test
A deck more than 300 millimetres above the ground is a raised platform, and raised platforms are excluded from Classes A and E. Here is how the measurement works and what to do on a sloping plot.
Habitats regulations assessment inside the application process
The habitats regulations assessment is the council's finding, not your appendix. How screening, appropriate assessment and mitigation actually run through an English planning application.
Mezzanines, floor loading and change of use
Internal works are usually not development, but a retail mezzanine creating more than 200 square metres is a statutory exception. Loading, headroom and escape decide whether it is buildable.
Daylight conditions on an outline permission
At outline, the maximum parameter envelope answers the neighbour daylight question and nothing about internal daylight. Splitting the condition is what keeps it dischargeable at reserved matters.
A proportionate drainage strategy for one dwelling
A single dwelling needs a short drainage statement, a soakage test and a layout drawing, not a modelled catchment study. Defining the brief is what keeps the fee proportionate.
Local nature recovery strategy mapping and your site
Local nature recovery strategies map areas of particular importance and opportunity areas. Falling inside one changes the strategic significance multiplier and the habitats worth creating.
Part 4 Class C: temporary use as a state-funded school
Part 4 Class C gives a new state-funded school up to two academic years in a temporary building. It covers change of use only, and the permanent application has to run alongside it from term one.
Challenging a local plan under section 113
An adopted development plan document can only be questioned under section 113 of the 2004 Act, within six weeks of adoption. The grounds are procedural, and the usual remedy is partial quashing.
Drafted pre-application submissions and what officers read
Pre-application advice in England is discretionary, charged and not binding. Numbered questions about policy, validation and consultees get answers; questions about the outcome do not.
Unilateral undertakings: when they work and when they fail
A unilateral section 106 deed works for self-executing one-way promises. It fails where the obligation needs the authority to covenant, or where the triggers cannot be observed.
Retaining walls on a sloping site and the evidence required
A retaining wall is rarely just a wall. The reshaping of ground that puts it there is an engineering operation, and the height that counts is measured from the lower side.
Daylight in a mews or back land development
Enclosed infill plots fail on amenity in two directions: too little light inside and too much shadow on the donor garden. Both are solved in the massing rather than the glazing.
Steering vulnerable uses to the lower risk parts of a site
The sequential approach applies inside the site boundary as well as between sites. Depth mapping before the layout is fixed, and a record of the options you rejected, is what evidences it.
Amending a National Heritage List entry and who may apply
Minor amendments correct factual errors without reopening the designation. A full reassessment can upgrade a building or produce a longer entry, so decide what you actually need first.
CIL surcharges for failing to notify the start of works
The Community Infrastructure Levy regime attaches a prescribed surcharge to each missed notice, and a commencement notice served late removes a self-build exemption altogether.
Part 3 Class N: amusement arcades and casinos to housing
Arcades and casinos are sui generis, so Class MA cannot reach them. Class N is the permitted development route, capped at 150 square metres and turned on noise and evidence of the previous use.
Prior approval deadlines across the permitted development classes
Prior approval periods are a property of the class, not a single rule: 28 days for agricultural and demolition, 42 for larger home extensions, 56 for change of use and upward extensions.
Drafting the supporting note for a discharge of conditions
A discharge of conditions request asks the authority to approve a specification, not to revisit the development. Reading the condition as a brief is what gets it determined without correspondence.
Eurocode 7 and the geotechnical report at planning stage
Planning asks whether the ground conditions make a scheme deliverable, not how the foundations are designed. Desk study, scope and monitoring programme decide whether a condition or a refusal follows.
Sunlight to a garden: the 21 March two hour test
Garden sunlight is assessed on 21 March, against a recommendation that at least half the amenity area receives two hours of direct sun. The before and after ratio decides most arguments on small urban plots.
Exception Test evidence for a site in Flood Zone 3a
In Flood Zone 3a a more vulnerable use engages the Exception Test. The first limb needs a quantified community benefits case, the second needs levels, compensatory storage and safe access.
Evidencing a planning constraint that is not on the map
Veteran trees, undesignated archaeology, local heritage and unrecorded footpaths rarely appear on published layers. Here is how to evidence one during a live application and how to get it recorded for the future.
Part 4 Class E: temporary use of land for film-making
Part 4 Class E of the GPDO 2015 permits film-making use of land for up to nine months in any 27-month period, with temporary structures. The notice, the exclusions and the reinstatement duty decide whether a location works.
Not sure which documents your council will ask for?
Enter your postcode and PlanScope recommends the right reports for your project, then drafts them in minutes.
Enter your postcode on PlanScope