PlanScope Blog – Page 65
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 65
9529 articlesWater neutrality: the constraint that stopped a housing market
Water neutrality requires a development to add nothing to total abstraction in its area. The duty arises under the Habitats Regulations, so it cannot be negotiated away.
Scheduled monuments: consent, setting and works that need it
Works to a scheduled monument need consent from the Secretary of State, not the council, and doing them without it is an offence. Development in the setting is a planning question instead.
The planning unit and when one building holds two uses
Identifying the planning unit decides whether a building in two occupations has one composite use or two, which permitted development rights apply, and when immunity starts to run.
Gyms, climbing walls and Class E(d) indoor sport
A shop or office in Class E can become a gym without planning permission for the use. The fit-out, the plant and the structure-borne noise from free weights are the real applications.
Part 4 temporary use rights and the day limits
Class B of Part 4 allows temporary use of land for a limited number of days each calendar year. The exclusions, the counting and the ban on permanent works catch people out.
Permitted development on a house created under Class Q or MA
A dwelling created through a Part 3 prior approval has no Part 1 permitted development rights, so extensions and outbuildings need an application. Curtilage is the harder problem.
Running a business from home: when permission is needed
Most home businesses need no permission because the use of the house has not materially changed. Visitors, deliveries, noise and storage are what shift the answer.
Shepherd's huts, pods and mobile structures in a garden
A garden hut can be lawful with no permission at all, or an enforcement risk, depending on whether it is a building and how it is used. The use is what councils look at.
Who prepares a social infrastructure assessment
A social infrastructure assessment is written by a planning consultant from data held by education authorities, integrated care boards and council service departments. Testing those figures is most of the work.
Who prepares a statement of community involvement
An applicant's statement of community involvement is written by whoever designed the consultation. It has to show what changed as a result, which is the part most statements miss.
Who prepares a utilities assessment
A utilities assessment is written by an engineer but built from capacity responses only the network operators can give. Running those enquiries late is what wrecks programmes.
Competent person: who the law accepts for which report
Six planning report types carry a statutory competence requirement. Many more only expect a suitably qualified author. The difference changes who can sign and what happens if they cannot.
Betterment in highway terms: what a section 278 delivers
A section 278 agreement lets a developer pay a highway authority to improve the existing highway, but only where the authority is satisfied the public benefits. Here is how it is secured and programmed.
Costing an asbestos refurbishment and demolition survey
Access and making good drive the cost of a refurbishment and demolition survey, not the sample count. It also sits ahead of every other intrusive appointment on the programme.
Who prepares a waste management strategy
A waste strategy is a calculation and a drawing, not a narrative. The architect usually owns it, the transport consultant checks the access, and the council's waste team decides whether it works.
Cladding, render and external finishes: what needs permission
Re-rendering a house is usually permitted development under Class A. Designated land, listed buildings and Article 4 directions are where that right disappears.
Exceedance route: where water goes when the system fills
Every drainage system has a capacity, and water above it has to go somewhere. An exceedance route is the designed overland path, and it is a levels exercise before it is a pipe exercise.
Purpose-built student accommodation and the use classes
Cluster student accommodation sits outside the Use Classes Order. Self-contained studios are the arguable case, and the description of development is what fixes the answer.
C4, large HMOs and where sui generis begins
Six residents is the ceiling for Class C4. The seventh takes the property into sui generis, where no permitted change applies and concentration policy bites.
Does a conservatory count towards the extension allowance
A conservatory attached to the house is an enlargement under Class A, so it uses the same depth allowance as a brick extension, measured from the original rear wall.
Designated land and the permitted development you lose
Designated land does not have a separate rulebook. The same classes apply with paragraphs switched off, and knowing which ones bite decides whether you need permission.
Class Q and the structural soundness test
Class Q permits conversion, not rebuilding. If the barn needs a new structural frame or new load-bearing walls to work as a house, the right does not apply.
Flats and permitted development: what is and is not available
The Order defines a dwellinghouse so as to exclude flats, which removes every Part 1 householder right. A few other classes still apply, and leasehold consent runs on its own track.
Ecologist competence for a preliminary ecological appraisal
A preliminary ecological appraisal is a scoping exercise. Its value lies in the limitations it states honestly and the survey seasons it puts into your programme.
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