PlanScope Blog – Page 95
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 95
9475 articlesFlood sequential test or retail sequential test
One asks whether the development could sit on land at lower flood risk. The other asks whether it could sit in a town centre. They can point in opposite directions on the same site.
Volumetric run-off coefficient in drainage design
The coefficient converts rainfall depth into run-off volume, and volume is a different question from peak rate. Confusing the two produces a system that passes the discharge check and floods anyway.
A side extension facing a blank flank wall
A blank flank wall has no window to assess and no right of light to lose. The objections that survive are the terracing effect, the rainwater detail at the boundary and the light in your own rooms.
Fire and structural evidence for a basement storey
A basement has no ground level window to climb out of, and digging beneath a house removes the support its foundations rely on. Those two facts drive every requirement.
Detention basins designed as usable landscape
A basin that counts towards an open space requirement and one that appears as a fenced hollow are the same feature designed differently. Slopes, depth and inundation frequency decide which you get.
Reviewing an AI drafted report as the named professional
Signing a draft makes you the author for professional purposes. The checks that decide your exposure are policy editions, traceable site facts and the gaps a draft filled instead of flagging.
Peat soils and the policy against disturbance
Drained peat oxidises and keeps releasing carbon long after the works finish. The first questions on a peat site are how deep it goes and what the scheme would do to the water table.
Discharge of conditions or a section 73 application
A discharge application asks whether your details satisfy the condition. Section 73 asks for the condition to change, and creates a new permission that carries the original time limit.
Refuse vehicle access, carry distances and turning heads
The refuse vehicle sets carriageway width, corner radii and turning provision. Test the swept paths and carry distances against the waste service's own guidance before the plots are set out.
Dendrochronology and dating evidence for a building
Dendrochronology gives a felling date, not a construction date. Commission it when the date is genuinely disputed and the answer would change the significance argument, because a share of samples return nothing.
Light to a neighbour's conservatory: how it is treated
A conservatory is normally an addition rather than a main habitable room, and most of its light arrives through the roof. The exceptions are the inner room behind it and a flank wall built close by.
Upward extension: structural adequacy of the host building
Lightweight construction reduces added dead load and does nothing for overturning. Investigate stability first, then vertical capacity, then foundations, because that is the order of difficulty.
Swale design: gradients, side slopes and check dams
A swale is mostly geometry. Shallow gradients keep flow slow, gentle side slopes let a machine mow it, and check dams break a steeper fall into shallow steps.
Energy and overheating modelling: who holds what
Compliance modelling and dynamic simulation are done by different people with different accreditations. Asking which software and which accreditation is more useful than asking whether they have done one before.
Overhead lines, clearances and undergrounding a plot
Conductor clearance is a safety requirement, not a policy test, so it cannot be argued away. Work out the usable envelope from the operator's corridor first, then design the dwelling into it.
Class MA prior approval or full permission for flats
Class MA grants the change of use and nothing else. The route works when the building passes every eligibility gate and the envelope stays as built; otherwise a full application is the cleaner asset.
Section 278 agreements: scope, bonds and commuted sums
A section 278 agreement is a design and approval process, not paperwork that follows a decision. The three cost heads developers underestimate are check and supervision fees, the bond, and commuted sums.
Geophysical survey methods and which suits your site
Magnetometry is fast on chalk and gravel but defeated by made ground and steel fences. Radar finds masonry and fails on clay. Resistance sees both, when the season gives it a moisture contrast.
A boundary wall raised to two metres and the light lost
Part 2 Class A allows two metres away from a vehicular highway and one metre next to one. That means the wall most likely to take light from a ground floor window is often the one needing no permission.
Geocellular storage and designing access for cleaning
Modular cells hold a large volume in a small footprint, but silt that reaches the cells stays there. The maintenance channel and the upstream treatment stage decide whether the design is accepted.
Fire statement content: the plans and the narrative
A Gateway One fire statement answers what planning can determine: layout, appliance access, water supply, the escape strategy in principle and the construction phase. The detailed design belongs at Gateway Two.
Who can sign off a structural appraisal for a conversion
No statute names the qualification, but a conversion appraisal carries weight when a chartered engineer has inspected the building, states the limitations and answers the capable of conversion question directly.
High pressure gas mains and building proximity distances
A high pressure gas main brings three separate constraints: the registered easement, the operator's building proximity distance and the HSE consultation zone. Find all three before the layout is drawn.
Conservation area demolition: permission or prior approval
Conservation area consent went in 2013. Demolishing an unlisted building in a conservation area is now relevant demolition needing planning permission, with a criminal offence attached; Part 11 Class B covers the rest.
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