PlanScope Blog – Page 84
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 84
9495 articlesDrafting noise conditions that can actually be verified
A noise condition that cannot be measured cannot be enforced. How to draft a limit with a named receptor, defined periods, a stated metric and a verification test that settles the question.
Mirror image and policy compliant schemes as a comparator
Where BRE 209 results fail for contextual reasons, a mirror image massing or a policy compliant alternative supplies the missing baseline. Here is how to build one that an inspector will accept.
Embodied carbon of foundations and ground works
On brownfield sites the substructure can carry more embodied carbon than the frame above. How piling, rafts, ground improvement and mix design compare, and how to report substructure so the saving is reviewable.
Using geological data for a desk study
Mapped bedrock and superficial geology, scanned borehole logs and the national hazard datasets will build a working ground model for a site. Here is how far those records go and where intrusive investigation takes over.
What goes inside the red line for the half hectare test
Site area is a major development threshold on its own. What the application red line has to contain, what belongs on the blue line, and how a buffer or an access strip can tip a small scheme into major status.
Biodiversity net gain or a preliminary ecological appraisal
A preliminary ecological appraisal answers what lives on the site. The statutory biodiversity metric measures habitat area and condition. Here is how the two differ, where they overlap and the order to do them in.
Costing a thirty year habitat management obligation
The biodiversity gain condition requires habitat to be maintained for at least thirty years. Pricing it as establishment, management, monitoring and authority fees stops year twenty becoming a surprise.
Refusal on nutrient neutrality grounds: what to do next
A nutrient neutrality refusal follows from the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 rather than from planning policy. Here is how the budget is calculated, how mitigation is secured and whether an appeal is worth filing.
Utilities evidence where a main crosses the site
Where a water main or public sewer crosses a development site, the easement and the undertaker's build over or diversion position decide the layout. Here is the evidence a planning authority expects.
Archaeologists, registers and who may excavate
The archaeological adviser decides who may excavate by deciding whose written scheme of investigation they will approve. Registers, accreditation, specialists and the archive problem.
Statutory nuisance and why planning conditions matter more
Two regimes control the same noise from a business. The planning condition is the one with no right of appeal, which is why councils reach for it first.
Daylight obstruction from boundary walls and fences
Most boundary fences pass the 25 degree test without an assessment. Low windows, patio doors, basements and gardens are where walls and fences cause genuine loss.
Green roofs: what counts and what the drawings must show
A thin sedum blanket satisfies almost no current policy. What separates extensive, biodiverse and intensive roofs, how much attenuation credit to expect, and the drawings that discharge the condition.
Finding air quality monitoring data for a site
Diffusion tube results need bias adjustment and often annualisation before they mean anything, and background maps come on a one kilometre grid. Where the data lives and how to use it properly.
How floorspace is measured for a major development test
Gross internal, gross external and net additional floorspace produce different answers to the same question. How to measure, which basis each regime uses, and what the schedule should contain.
Walkthrough: flats above a parade with no parking
An illustrative conversion of first floor storage above a shopping parade into flats, following the car free case, the yard that had to hold bins and bicycles, and the noise from the takeaway below.
VAT on conversions and professional fees in a budget
The VAT rate on building work is fixed by what the property was, not by what you are doing to it. The conversion and empty home reliefs, the blocked items, and why design fees sit outside them.
Appealing when the development plan is out of date
Establishing that the policies most important for determining an application are out of date is the appellant's job. The evidence chain, the balance that follows, and the council responses that beat it.
Structural evidence for adding two storeys to a block
Vertical capacity, lateral stability, temporary works above occupied flats and the core strategy decide whether an upward extension is buildable, long before the prior approval application.
Outbuildings near a boundary and the 2.5 metre limit
Class E caps outbuilding height at 2.5 metres within two metres of any boundary, measured from the highest adjacent ground. The coverage test, the front garden exclusion and the raised platform rule.
Class ZA demolition and rebuild: what it permits
Class ZA of Part 20 covers detached blocks of flats and former office or light industrial buildings. The footprint constraint, the height caps and the prior approval matters that decide most schemes.
Who can prepare a Phase 2 contamination report
Phase 2 is intrusive investigation producing quantitative risk assessment, so the competence question is sharper than for a desk study. What councils look for in the author, the laboratory and the sign-off.
Specifying luminaires to control sky glow
A luminaire datasheet quotes upward light ratio at zero tilt. Once the unit is angled across a carriageway the figure changes, which is why the schedule has to state the installed attitude.
Rooflights and daylight to a converted roof space
Rooflights deliver more daylight per square metre than vertical glazing because they see an unobstructed sky. How to size and position them, and where a dormer wins instead.
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