PlanScope Blog – Page 9
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 9
8411 articlesWhy an AI draft flags a missing site fact
A plausible invented floor level is worse than a blank, because nobody checks it. How to read the flags in a draft as a scope document for the application.
Basement under a protected tree: roots and consent
Cellular confinement spreads load above undisturbed roots and does nothing for an excavation. What actually decides whether a basement under a protected tree is possible.
Daylight modelling inputs that get challenged
The argument in daylight review is almost never about the test. It is about reflectance, geometry, room use assumptions and the baseline that was run.
Renewable energy requirements on employment units
A renewables percentage applied to a shell and core warehouse depends entirely on what it is measured against. How to settle the definition and draft a condition that can be complied with.
When vibration is assessed in a planning application
Human response and building damage thresholds differ by more than an order of magnitude, so the two assessments need separate sections and separate criteria.
Who consents works to a street tree
A tree in adopted highway land is the highway authority's to prune or fell. Where Tree Preservation Orders, conservation area notices and the consultation duty fit around that.
Access onto a single track rural lane
On a single track lane the highway objection is about geometry and conflict rather than flow. What to survey, what to draw and how to make a passing bay offer deliverable.
Rainwater harvesting and the drainage credit
Attenuation needs empty volume and a supply tank is designed to be full. How a credit can be earned through a two-zone tank, and why harvesting belongs in the water efficiency case.
Planning obligation: when a contribution may be required
Regulation 122 sets three statutory tests for any planning obligation. The most useful question in a contributions negotiation is which limb a given ask satisfies.
What a validation officer checks that AI cannot know
Validation turns on administrative facts about a specific site, owner and council. The six checks to run on a drafted report before it is submitted.
Basement waterproofing grades and what to show
The grade of internal environment drives the whole waterproofing design, and pump resilience is the part a planning officer will press hardest on.
Sense of enclosure and how the objection is assessed
Enclosure, overbearing impact and loss of outlook are amenity judgements rather than daylight calculations. What evidence carries weight and which design changes work.
Solar panels on a pitched roof: permission and policy
Class A of Part 14 allows roof-mounted solar on a house, including the front slope and in conservation areas, subject to a 0.2 metre projection limit and conditions on appearance.
Predicting construction noise under BS 5228
Four inputs drive a BS 5228 construction noise prediction, and on-time percentages are the one most often got wrong. How the calculation and the criteria work.
Hedgerow translocation and reinstatement
Translocation moves hedge stock rather than habitat. What the method statement needs, how to reinstate around a new access, and why hedgerow units cannot be traded for other habitat.
Committed development and cumulative impact in a TA
Agree the committed development list and the background growth factors with the highway authority before commissioning surveys, because the list usually decides the capacity conclusion.
Who maintains the SuDS after the houses are sold
Adoption, highway transfer or a management company: the route has to be fixed at concept drainage stage, because each one constrains where components can sit.
Section 73 application: varying a condition in practice
Section 73 lets you vary conditions on a permission you already hold, but it cannot touch the description of development and it will not buy you more time.
Who signs a Design and Access Statement
There is no signature block and no prescribed author for a Design and Access Statement. Article 9 of the DMPO 2015 says when one is needed and what it must explain.
Conservation rooflights and how they are specified
Class C allows a rooflight protruding no more than 150 millimetres from the roof plane, including in a conservation area, but the detailing and position decide whether an officer accepts it.
Rear extension depth: the 3 and 4 metre lines
Class A allows a single-storey rear extension of 3 metres on an attached house and 4 metres on a detached one, with deeper extensions only through the prior approval procedure.
Pedestrian audits and crossing provision evidence
An audit that produces a located, priced schedule of defects and remedies is evidence. A page of photographs is not. How to choose routes, score them and link findings to mitigation.
Surface water sewer capacity and the undertaker's position
The right to connect under section 106 of the Water Industry Act 1991 survives, subject to limited refusal grounds. Why the capacity enquiry has to come before the layout is fixed.
External wall insulation on a terraced elevation
On designated land, render and cladding fall outside Class A entirely. Elsewhere the similar appearance condition decides it, and on a terrace the party wall junction, eaves and reveals decide the design.
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