PlanScope Blog – Page 89
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 89
9485 articlesOil tanks, gas cylinders and bin stores in a front garden
Class E of the GPDO 2015 covers heating oil containers and bin stores, but not on land forward of the principal elevation. What the limits are, and what a frontage application has to show.
Water consumption targets for London residential schemes
The 105 litre figure in Policy SI 5 is the London Plan's way of invoking the tighter Part G optional requirement, which applies only where a planning condition imposes it.
Answering a refusal for overdevelopment of the site
No policy says a site is overdeveloped at a given number of units. Break the reason for refusal into its actual strands and most of them can be answered with a measured character survey and a space standard schedule.
Decking, garden levels and the 300 millimetre rule
The General Permitted Development Order defines a raised platform as one more than 0.3m high, and excludes raised platforms from both Class A and Class E. Above that line you are making an application whatever the deck is made of.
Walkthrough: a riverside mill converted to flats
An illustrative walkthrough of a grade II listed mill in Flood Zone 3a becoming 22 flats. Nothing about the structure can move, which makes the flood case and the heritage case the same problem.
Walkthrough: a hot food takeaway in a shopping parade
An illustrative walkthrough of a shop becoming a hot food takeaway with flats above. The application turns on a flue, a fan and a policy about distance from schools.
Walkthrough: church hall to a day nursery
An illustrative walkthrough of a church hall becoming a day nursery. The fabric barely changes, and every difficult question is about use class, outdoor space and the fifteen minutes either side of 9am.
Historic paint analysis as evidence for redecoration
Paint analysis establishes a sequence of decorative generations and their approximate dates. It does not hand you a palette, and reports are routinely asked to support conclusions the samples do not reach.
Overheating in London schemes and the cooling hierarchy
Policy SI 4 treats active cooling as the sixth of six steps. A scheme with comfort cooling throughout and a compliant modelling report has satisfied the numbers and failed the policy.
Heritage and growth under London Plan Policy HC1
HC1 asks applicants to describe significance and show the asset can still be appreciated in its surroundings. The statutory duties sitting alongside it are stronger, and a finding of harm carries real weight.
Opportunity Area frameworks and the weight they carry
Applicants cite Opportunity Area Planning Frameworks as though they were policy. They sit outside the development plan, which changes both what they can deliver for a scheme and how objectors use them against it.
Highway drainage for a new rural access
Highway authorities treat run-off and material transfer onto a rural lane as a safety matter. The design comes down to the levels in the first few metres and the consent position for the roadside ditch.
Internal noise targets and how councils condition them
A condition requiring 35 dB with no index, no period and no window position is unenforceable. Here is how the BS 8233 values turn into a facade specification and a condition both sides can test.
The four element approach to residential noise assessment
Stage 2 of ProPG has four elements, and the one that gets skipped is the design process. An assessment that reports 30 dB in the bedrooms and nothing else has answered a quarter of the question.
Fabric first against renewables: where the money goes
Fabric first is right for the first few thousand pounds and wrong for the last few. Work out the crossover for your own plot with SAP sensitivity runs rather than borrowing someone else's league table.
Part O overheating: simplified method or modelling
Approved Document O offers tabulated glazing limits or a dynamic thermal simulation. Single aspect flats, high risk locations and noisy roads push schemes into the modelling route whether the team planned for it or not.
Be Green: sizing renewables on a constrained roof
Be Green stands or falls on the roof plan. Gross roof area overstates the array by a wide margin once plant, greening, access, edge setbacks and inter-row spacing are deducted.
Party wall and planning overlap for basement works
Planning permission does not authorise excavation next to a neighbour, and a party wall award does not authorise development. On a basement the notice periods are fixed by statute and usually decide the programme.
Common basement policy restrictions in London boroughs
London basement schemes are governed by the borough's adopted local plan rather than national policy. The limits on depth, garden coverage and light wells follow a consistent pattern even though the numbers differ.
Fire Statement for a change of use application
Converting an office block over 18m into flats creates a relevant building and triggers the article 9A Fire Statement requirement, even with no external alteration. The fire issues on a conversion are inherited rather than designed.
Daylight assessment at outline stage with parameter plans
At outline stage the assessment must test the largest building the parameters would allow, not the scheme you intend to build. Fixing heights to a datum rather than a storey count is where most of these applications go wrong.
Window to wall ratio and the overheating conflict
Daylight provision criteria push glazing area up and Approved Document O pushes it down. Reveal depth, shading geometry and glass selectivity resolve more of the conflict than changing window sizes does.
Obscure glazing conditions and the 1.7 metre rule
The 1.7 metre figure is a condition in the General Permitted Development Order, measured from internal floor level. Restricted opening hardware does not satisfy it, and a side bedroom window can fail Part B as a result.
Internal alterations to a listed house and consent
Listing covers the inside of the building as well as the outside, so removing an internal wall needs consent. Plan form, chimney breasts and original staircases are where most refusals happen.
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