PlanScope Blog – Page 92
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 92
9481 articlesFire safety statements under London Plan Policy D12
D12 catches every major application in London. Gateway One catches buildings at 18m or seven storeys. Most schemes need one of them and some need both.
Dangerous structures and emergency works in a conservation area
A structural engineer saying the wall is dangerous is not consent to demolish it. The urgent works defence is narrow and the record you keep decides everything.
Daylight baselines where a consented neighbour is unbuilt
Assess against the existing buildings and you look worse. Assess against the consented scheme and an objector will say you chose the flattering baseline. Present both.
Air source heat pump siting, noise and the boundary rule
The noise calculation, not the boundary distance, is what decides most heat pump installations. Here is how the test works and where it goes wrong.
Rendering a brick house: design policy and limits
Render over brick is permitted development in most places and refused in a conservation area. The harder question is whether the wall can take it at all.
Be Seen reporting and post occupancy energy monitoring
Post occupancy energy reporting is a five year commitment that starts with the meter schedule. Get the metering wrong at design stage and the data cannot be produced.
Trip generation for a care home or a school
A care home peaks at shift handover and a primary school peaks in a twenty minute window. Neither matches the highway peak hours a residential assessment uses.
Reinstating a lost feature: the evidence for restoration
Restoration stands or falls on evidence. Here is how the sources rank, what counts as proof of a lost feature, and when reinstatement destroys more than it recovers.
Mineral safeguarding areas and former non-coal workings
There is no Coal Authority for limestone, gypsum or brine. On a site over former non-coal workings the investigation and the liability sit with you.
Surface reflectance and light coloured finishes
Reflectance only shifts the illuminance-based results, never the sky view tests. Knowing which is which tells you when a pale finish is worth specifying.
Garage conversions: habitable standards and parking loss
Most garage conversions are permitted development until you find the condition on the original permission requiring the garage to be kept for parking.
Pre-demolition audits and honest reuse targets
A pre-demolition audit is a quantified inventory, not a statement of intent. Here is what it records and how to set targets you can still stand behind at completion.
Shared surfaces in a residential layout: current limits
Shared surfaces are still designed and still consented, but the guidance has moved against level surfaces without a detectable edge. Here is what now has to be shown.
Rooflights on a historic roof slope: what gets consent
A rooflight on a historic roof turns on visibility, flush fitting and profile rather than on how much light it gives you. Here is what is usually accepted.
Sprinkler tanks and pump rooms: the space they need
A suppression system needs a tank, two pumps and a room to put them in. Decide where that space goes before the accommodation schedule is fixed, not after.
Daylight assessment when the neighbour refuses access
No surveyor has a right of entry to a neighbour's house for a daylight assessment. Here is how to model an assumed layout and write a caveat that survives scrutiny.
Local resilience forums and flood emergency planning
Flood emergency planning sits with local resilience forums under the Civil Contingencies Act, not with the planning system. Here is how the two meet.
Corner plot side extensions and the second frontage
On a corner plot the side elevation is a frontage, and that single fact removes most of the permitted development you expected to have. Here is what applies instead.
Mixed use energy statements: two compliance routes
Residential and non-residential floorspace are modelled under different volumes of Approved Document L. Here is how to keep one energy strategy honest about both.
Private drive width and the number of dwellings served
A shared private drive is judged on how many homes it serves. Here is what changes at two, five and six dwellings, and the drawings that get a highway officer to agree.
Sewerage design standards and sewer adoption approval
Adoptable sewers are designed to the sewerage undertaker's standards, not the council's. Here is what governs the layout, how the application runs and where the programme slips.
Ramps and platform lifts at a listed building entrance
Level access at a listed entrance is a balance between two statutory duties. Here is how to rank the options, detail them and present the case for consent.
Firefighting water supply on a rural site
Rural schemes stall on firefighting water more often than on anything else in the fire consultee response. Here is what the flow rates require and what a static source has to deliver.
Courtyard daylight: the width to height ratio that works
Courtyard daylight is decided by proportion before anything else. Here are the width to height ratios that hold up, the rooms that fail first and how to test the geometry early.
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