PlanScope Blog – Page 75
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 75
9511 articlesOutdoor seating on a footway outside a cafe
Furniture on the adopted footway needs a pavement licence. Seating on a private forecourt can be a change of use. The title plan and the highway records decide which.
Walkthrough: a takeaway refused on odour and resubmitted
A hot food takeaway refused on odour grounds, and what the second application did differently: an odour risk assessment, a specified multi-stage system and a flue above ridge level.
Levy surcharges and the cost of a missed notice
Missing a levy notice costs a fixed surcharge, interest, and often the right to pay by instalments. Here is each surcharge, the appeal route and the checklist that prevents it.
Refusal on estate road and adoption standards
Estate road refusals come from the highway authority's adopted design guide. Separating safety points from adoption points is what decides whether the scheme or the appeal succeeds.
Alternatives and scoping inside an environmental statement
The 2017 Regulations tie the alternatives chapter to what the developer in fact studied, and a scoping opinion binds the statement that follows. Both are regularly mishandled.
Objecting on highway safety without a traffic survey
A highway objection does not need a commissioned survey. It needs the right subject matter, a tape measure and dated observations the engineer will never see.
Appeal procedures compared: written, hearing and inquiry
You state a preference and the Inspectorate decides. Here is how the three appeal procedures are allocated, what each demands, and how to argue for the one you want.
Bat class licences and which consultant can use one
A class licence removes weeks from a bat mitigation programme, but only a consultant personally registered by Natural England can use one. Here is how to check and what it covers.
Ground movement assessment and the burden of proof
The ground movement strand of a basement impact assessment has to demonstrate an accepted damage category at each neighbouring structure. The burden sits with the applicant.
Overshadowing of a public park by a tall building
The sun on ground test gives one number for an amenity space. A park is many spaces. Here is how to zone it, baseline it and report it so the result survives committee.
Live-work units and how councils classify them
A live-work unit is a composite use, not a use class. That is why permission is needed, why the conditions are tight, and why councils worry about the work element disappearing.
Serviced offices in a building with residential above
Serviced offices in a mixed building rarely fail on use class. They fail on structure-borne noise, out-of-hours access and shared refuse. Here is the evidence that settles each one.
Walkthrough: a gym above a parade of shops
An illustrative walkthrough of a first floor gym in a shopping parade, where the use class question was easy and dropped weights decided the application.
Claiming the self-build levy exemption without losing it
The self-build exemption from the Community Infrastructure Levy is usually lost on paperwork, not on the building. Here is the sequence, the deadlines and the disqualifying events.
Refusal for loss of a retail frontage in a parade
Loss of retail frontage refusals turn on the adopted plan's frontage boundary and its marketing period, not on town centre impact. Here is the evidence that shifts the recommendation.
Social infrastructure evidence for sixty new flats
Contributions on a sixty-flat scheme are decided by child yield, capacity evidence and regulation 122. Here is what the assessment has to quantify and where the council's figures usually give way.
Budgeting biodiversity units and statutory credit prices
Statutory credits sit at the bottom of the hierarchy and are priced to stay there. How to budget baseline units, spatial and temporal discounts and the 30 year liability.
Refusal for tree loss and root protection evidence
Officers refuse for tree loss when the evidence does not show retained trees will survive, or when the layout guarantees a later felling application.
The development description chapter of an environmental statement
The development description decides what every other chapter of an environmental statement can say. What Schedule 4 requires and how to handle reserved detail.
Walkthrough: a basement with a neighbour objection
A specific, evidenced objection on ground movement does not shrink a basement. It makes you prove it is buildable. What that cost and what changed.
Refusal for failing the retail sequential test
A sequential test refusal means your site search did not prove no preferable site was available. How to rebuild the evidence and where the 2,500 m² threshold bites.
Ground gas monitoring regimes in a Phase 2 report
Gas monitoring fails on too few visits, none in falling pressure, and flow rates recorded as zero. How to design a programme that survives a contaminated land officer.
Developer pre-application consultation: what to expect
Most pre-application consultation is a choice the developer made, not a duty. How to use the exhibition, what to ask in writing, and how to check the statement later.
Prior approval procedure and the deemed grant trap
The 56 day deemed grant under paragraph W runs from receipt, permits only what was submitted, and waives none of the class conditions. How to use it safely.
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