PlanScope Blog – Page 91
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 91
9482 articlesRear extensions over a drain run and the build over
A build over agreement is nothing to do with planning permission, and permitted development does not cover it. How to find the sewer and design around it.
Deliveries, servicing and construction logistics in London
Policy T7 requires servicing and construction logistics plans. Both are usually written too late, which is why servicing bays end up where no vehicle can reach them.
Which rooms to assess and the habitable room question
The rooms left out of a daylight report are the ones an objector will attack. How BRE guidance frames room use, and how to scope and document the exclusions.
Garden rooms with a shower room: incidental or not
Class E covers buildings incidental to a house, not additional living accommodation. Where washing facilities tip the balance, and how foul drainage is dealt with.
Energy evidence for agricultural and equestrian buildings
An unheated barn does not need a dwelling calculation. The exemption that applies, how it treats stables, and the proportionate submission that answers local policy.
Which design vehicles to test in a swept path analysis
A tracking drawing is only as good as the vehicle chosen. The routine and occasional movements to test, and the parked car case most submissions omit.
Cellars, vaults and the extent of a listed building
Below ground fabric is where most unauthorised alteration of listed buildings happens. What the listing covers, and which consents a cellar project needs.
Fire service access and hardstanding in a site layout
Appliance access is fixed by the planning layout. The dimensions, the tracking evidence and the conditions that keep the route clear once people move in.
Reflectance assumptions in a daylight model: an audit
The average daylight factor formula divides by one minus the square of average reflectance. That makes the inputs table the first thing a reviewer should read.
London cycle parking standards and how to meet them
Cycle parking is a minimum standard in London, and applications fail on access rather than on quantum. How to count it, design the store and draw it.
Garden offices and the incidental use test explained
Working from home is incidental. Running a business with staff, clients and deliveries is not. Where the line sits under Class E, and how to get certainty.
As built Part L evidence to discharge an energy condition
An energy condition is discharged with evidence that can only exist once the house is finished. Collect it as you build, and allow three months before occupation.
Requesting and reading collision data for an access
A highway safety objection is answered with recorded collision data for a defined area and period. How to get it, how to read it, and what it cannot tell you.
Mill conversion: machinery, floors and significance
A listed mill includes the fixtures. Line shafting, engine beds and wheel pits are part of the listing, and the cost of a conversion sits there rather than in the roof.
Fire Statement content, section by section
A Fire Statement is a planning document, not a fire strategy. Here is what each section has to settle, and what can honestly be left to Gateway Two.
Garden depth and rear garden standards explained
Garden standards come from adopted local plans and design guides, not from national policy. How depth, usable area and separation distances interact on an infill plot.
Healthy Streets and transport assessment in London
Junction capacity is no longer the test. Policies T2 and T4 of the London Plan ask whether the streets around the site improve, and the assessment has to evidence that.
Porch design limits and the three square metre rule
Class D of Part 1 of the GPDO allows a porch within three dimensional limits that apply together. The 2 metre distance from a highway boundary is the one that rules out most terraces.
Combustion plant in new development: policy resistance
Air quality, carbon targets and heating hierarchies all push against on-site combustion. What the evidence base has to show if the plant is to survive consultation.
Diverting a public footpath to allow a scheme
A public footpath across your site needs a separate order under section 257 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Unopposed it takes months; opposed it goes to the Planning Inspectorate.
Converting a chapel to a dwelling: the consents stack
A redundant chapel gains consents after you buy it. The exemption that let the congregation alter the building ends with worship, and bats, burials and a single tall volume do the rest.
Fire statement and design and access statement together
On a relevant building you submit both a Fire Statement and a Design and Access Statement. They describe the same cores, the same access route and the same facade. Here is how to coordinate them.
When a retained tree causes the daylight shortfall
A protected tree can make rooms gloomy without appearing in the daylight numbers at all. How tree canopy is treated in assessment, and the layout moves that resolve the conflict.
Agent of change in London: Policy D13 in practice
Policy D13 of the London Plan places the burden of mitigating noise on the new noise-sensitive development. It only works if the existing use puts evidence in front of the case officer.
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