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16 Helpful Things You Should Know About Planning And Building Regulations (a Guide To The Uk)
For small to medium sized businesses it is sometimes difficult to get to grips with tricky and complicated legislation which dictates what you can and you can't build. This article is designed to shed some helpful light on the subject as a first step in helping you to correctly assemble your project. 1) What needs permission? Most building work usually does need consent. Anything which is fixed down directly to any form of foundation will be the subject of building control and may need planning consent. 2) Consent - Pre-Planned Approved Sites Model industrial estates owned privately and 'let out' or sold to a pre-designed format may have been pre-planned so you can build to the 'approved format' without any further application. Variations will require consultation and extensions permission. If you are within the plan, you can probably build with minimal procedural recourse. 3) Other People with Interests in your Application Beware of third party consents, for example National Trust, landlords, areas of outstanding national beauty, sites of historical or national interest etcetera. You may find yourself paying for a Roman Fort you didn't know you had or worse still a county gas main! 4) If in doubt do Nothing Never build anything where there are any doubts until you have taken professional and specialist advice (local knowledge is always an advantage). 5) Specialist Knowledge There are at least 20 key areas of specialisation ranging from bye laws to archaeology, from highways to runways, and from railways to waterways. This is quite apart from engineering design and environmental expertise. The Local Authority is there to help you, not hinder you. However some of these items may not show up until consent is through and compliance can be costly. There is no need for shocks and surprises if you take the right help on board at the start. 6) Usage All land has authorised usage. It is allocated a status, i.e. residential, agricultural, retail, warehousing, manufacturing et cetera. There are also sub groups. If what you intend to do does not fit in with the existing status, you will have to seek advice and may need 'change of use' or full planning consent. 7) Planning v Building Control Planning permission details 'what' you can build, building control governs 'how' you build it. Both are governed by a whole range of regulations and directives covering safety, environment, welfare and technical aspects of the work. 8) Dangerous Processes If you are using hazardous substances, the chances are you will already know where you stand. If you are not, then look over the fence! What your neighbour does can be surprisingly important! The COSSH regulations were developed in part to stop the mixing of potentially cataclysmic chemicals and gases when shipped in ignorance on the same vehicle. A resulting incident could set off reactions in the ensuing leakages adding catastrophically to what is already a bad situation. Exposing any high risk activities to further uncoordinated processes is unacceptable. A surprising number of us have no idea what is happening over our fences. It is becoming an increasing issue for insurance companies and company officials, many of whom are only too well aware of their responsibilities and in particular the risks imposed by neighbours. Any outside storage therefore raises the need for such an assessment 9) When you may not need Consent There are circumstances where the size of the proposed development and/or the type (i.e extensions) are allowed, provided they stay within limitations. These vary by cubic capacity and foot print and very much depend on what is already there. At the end of this guide there is a link to a calculator on the internet, there are notes which will guide you through this section. The distance from your boundary to the location of the proposed development is also legislated and there are also guidance notes for you on this. It is worth a visit and will help you to understand and assess your own position more clearly. There are however hidden dangers with these notes read in isolation. For example you may be within the law on one aspect but miss critical traffic issues in the event you lose parking or turning room. This becomes fraught when it spills out onto the road and the local authority won't want to be left to clear up unmanageable traffic issues as a result of your need for covered space. Our buildings can be made to retract to help with such issues. This feature also helps with applications. 10) Working round the Clock Businesses and their activities always raise issues regarding working hours. The local authority is under direction to ensure unnecessary disturbances are avoided in the best interests of harmony. It doesn't just affect your industrial estate or location, all the movements to and from site, noise and traffic congestion and safety are real issues for concern for everyone in the community. Accordingly, where areas are sensitive to these issues, restrictions are inevitable. In extreme circumstances there can be grounds for applications being refused. 11) Altering Appearances Anything which alters appearances is a consideration, especially windows, doors and access arrangements and will almost certainly require permission, even if it satisfies other criteria and doesn't require consent in other respects. 12) Shared Property If you are joined on to someone else's boundary or property you need to stay away from it, by at least 5m. It is a minefield of legalisation, technical engineering problems and conflicts of interest. That said, there are occasions when mutual interests surface for the best, especially if the land is open. 13) Existing Structures The main issues we deal with are existing concrete pads. If you have an existing pad it will have to be strong enough to take the proposed structure. You cannot tell by looking at it. Although it may not affect the application it will have to have structural calculations prepared for it, especially if you expect it to bear the load of the new structure. This is where people confuse a slab with foundations. A foundation for a modern portal frame building may be anything up to 700mm below what you are looking at, be a metre cube or more and weigh in at anything from 1000 to 2000kgs as opposed to the 200 kgs you see on the surface which is a floor not a foundation. Needless to say foundations are complicated with many technical considerations. If you are building next to existing structures it gets really tricky especially if you don't own them (see item 12). It will affect your application if your factory is perched over an underground system for example or joins on to the local supermarket, especially if they object. 14) How to achieve the best Results from your Application The role of the planning officer is to act as an intermediary between you and the sitting planning committee so that your application is approved. Assuming you have never applied before you can expect to be given a lot of hoops to jump through. Two different officers may well give you totally different hoops to jump through and then give you more just when you think you have done everything right. Avoid the temptation to become frustrated or disillusioned with the process and remember it is not there just for you it is there for the community as a whole and protects you more than you probably know. Just imagine the mess we would be in without it! Most of the information you need can be teased out of constructive telephone calls and informal meetings - these are essential in the lead into your submission. It is time consuming and there is a learning curve and it may take up to 2 years to get it all in order even with professional help. Larger projects may take 2 to 4 times this length. If your site has a special status because it in the moat of Windsor Castle or has the only surviving Bactra Robustana moth you will need expert help and it will be a protracted application. So be patient and give yourself plenty of time. You simply cannot rush it. The fastest application I have ever achieved was 8 weeks from a standing start on to a site which already had approval for the type of development. People sometimes call this rubber stamping, but nonetheless the procedure still has to be fully observed. 6 months is very fast and 18 months is about normal for small works. 15) The First Step to Applying Download a planning application form from the internet. The questions are relatively straight forward and try to think of the full implications of where the questions lead, for example if it creates new jobs it means more people, transport, services and infrastructure loading. If your area has already reached its capacity in this respect you can expect it will be subjected to in depth examination from the people who are charged with safety and good community management as well as the much simpler implication on the immediate effect on your own premises. Thankfully most applications go through with relative ease but the issues they raise, the design support required and the mandatory provision of information will take time and money. We usually do things in a set order so that minimal cost is incurred in the event of a serious and/or insurmountable problem occurring. Please ask us for more information on how we can help save you money and time. 16) When you do not need Permission You do not require permission to renovate or restore, or for some types of extension provided they are sympathetic with the existing structure and when the build is an insignificant size in proportion to the rest of the development. (see also numbers 9 and 14) Planning and building regulations will affect any industrial/commercial project and produce conflicts of interests in terms of cost. In many cases an industrial specialist, such as a knowledgeable engineer with specialist skills, can manage this process for you and this will avoid costly mistakes by ensuring you marshal costs in a correct order to avoid wasted effort due to problems which are better handled to a strict technical priority. Materials Handling Engineering is about improvisation, design, good use and application of materials and equipment to help you do your work, productively, efficiently and above all safely. Just as doctors save lives, engineers save time and money and make your resources go further and last longer. We work well for everybody including doctors! Brochures and 'buy on line' have their place as do niche manufacturers but if you really want to see what your business is truly capable of and you want that elusive pole position then materials handling is a must have facility which when properly joined up in your work place consistently delivers measurable results. It is that essential equipment that gets you up your particular Everest every day. Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com To take a peek into Aladdin's Cave of business magic visit www.engineeredsolutions.info and start browsing, you can email me from there too and start a dialogue with knowledgeable people with a good command of working practices and how to support them, improve them and sort them out when they are not working well for you. Designs for equipment and practical on site support are all just a telephone call or click away to apply the right engineering muscle where it is most needed. |
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