PlanScope Blog – Page 90
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 90
9483 articlesScrub and burrowing animals on a scheduled monument
Letting scrub colonise an earthwork damages it. Grubbing it out without consent is an offence. A managed programme agreed with Historic England resolves both.
Walkthrough: former petrol station to four houses
On a closed forecourt the contamination evidence drives the application. This illustrative walkthrough follows the sequence from desk study to verification report.
Basement development policy in London boroughs
The London Plan has no basement policy. Boroughs set their own limits on depth, footprint, garden coverage and soil depth, so check the one for your street first.
Cat slide roofs on a single storey rear extension
A continuous slope over a rear extension looks right on a steep roof. It also drops the eaves, which engages the 3 metre boundary limit and costs usable headroom.
The Be Clean stage: heat networks and connection evidence
Be Clean is the only stage of the energy hierarchy that depends on a third party replying. Authorities now expect the enquiry correspondence, not an assertion.
Mayoral Community Infrastructure Levy and the zones
The Mayoral levy is charged on top of the borough's, across three zones built from whole boroughs. Reliefs are lost if work starts before the claim is determined.
Car club and travel voucher contributions
The money is simple. The on-street bay needs a traffic regulation order the developer cannot deliver, and the operator may never come forward.
Archaeological mitigation along a linear route
A working width samples archaeology by accident of alignment. Corridor evaluation, consistent recording and advance works keep the construction spread moving.
Second staircase requirements and planning applications
A second stair costs floor area on every storey and removes units. Whether an existing permission can be varied or needs replacing depends on its description.
Dominance and sense of enclosure in an amenity assessment
Daylight tests measure light at a window. They say nothing about how large a building feels from a kitchen table or how enclosed a garden has become.
Keeping the chimney stack on a terrace roof extension
On a terrace the stacks are the skyline, so officers assess the proposal against the row. Retaining one changes the dormer position, the flashing and the restraint.
Part L 2021 notional building and what it means for design
Part L builds a hypothetical dwelling with your geometry and a set specification, then makes its results your target. The fabric target is the one you cannot buy.
Gated accesses and emergency service override
Three bodies have a view on a gated access: the highway authority, the fire service and the waste service. Design for all three before the driveway is drawn.
Palaeoenvironmental sampling and what it adds
Bulk, waterlogged, column and dating samples answer different questions. A strategy that pairs each sample type with a question is the one a reviewer can approve.
Evacuation strategy and the planning interface
The planning submission fixes core count, stair width, lift provision and fire service access. Smoke control and compartment details belong at Gateway Two.
Transparent balustrades and daylight to the room behind
A glazed balustrade recovers part of the lower sky view, which helps vertical sky component more than daylight distribution. The soffit is the bigger obstruction.
Housing quality standards: dual aspect and north facing
D6 asks you to avoid single aspect dwellings that face north, have three or more bedrooms or sit in high noise. That is a massing decision, not a room size one.
Floor levels and thresholds where a garden slopes away
On a falling garden the floor level decides the threshold, the retaining structure and the drainage. Permitted development height is measured from the higher ground at the house.
Green roofs, biodiversity and the energy trade off
Three policies claim the same roof. Stacking functions in a biosolar or blue-green build-up resolves most of it, and an allocation drawing settles the rest.
Blocking back and queue length at a junction
A capacity ratio tells you how hard an arm is working. Only the queue in metres, compared against measured storage, tells you whether the junction behind will block.
Watching brief or strip map and record: choosing mitigation
A watching brief records what the contractor's trench exposes. Strip map and record maps the whole impacted area. The choice turns on deposit survival and groundwork method.
Structural survey for a conversion: scope and limits
The survey has one job: to show the building can become the proposed dwelling without substantial rebuilding. Scope the brief around that, not around general condition.
Setting daylight targets on a dense urban site
BRE 209 allows alternative daylight targets where context justifies them. Deriving one, choosing a baseline and agreeing it before submission is what makes it stick.
Referable applications and the Mayor's two stages
Referral to the Mayor adds a six week stage one and a 14 day stage two to a London programme, and gives the Mayor power to direct refusal or take the application over.
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