Category
6 articles
An empty high street unit looks like the simplest conversion in the planning system. In practice, Class E to C3 permitted development is decided by vacancy periods, Article 4 directions, retail frontage policy and a fire strategy that is far easier to write before completion than after.
Self-build relief from the Community Infrastructure Levy can be worth tens of thousands of pounds, yet it is claimed and lost on procedure rather than principle. These ten traps — from commencement notices to annexes and apportionment — are the ones that most often turn a modest project into a full levy bill.
A farmhouse with an agricultural tie can look like a bargain until a lender declines it and the search agents stop calling. This is a practical guide to how the condition is tested, the evidence that shifts a council, and the traps waiting for the unprepared buyer.
Neighbourhood plans were sold as a modest extension of local democracy. Fifteen years on, the design codes attached to them are shaping what can be built, where, and at what price. For buyers in rural and semi-rural England, the parish boundary is now a valuation line.
England’s local plans are being adopted, paused and rewritten at very different speeds, producing a postcode lottery for homeowners and small developers. This analysis explains how plan status changes planning prospects and how to carry out due diligence when the local plan is in flux.
An ‘outline planning permission granted’ line in a property listing can flatter a site’s true development potential. This analysis sets out why reserved matters, conditions and infrastructure contributions matter before exchange, and how buyers and self-builders can separate genuine consent from wishful thinking.