The Scottish Government has set out an inflation-linked increase to planning fees which will come into force on Wednesday 1 April 2026. Fees for appeals to Scottish Ministers and fees for local reviews (to the…
A Practical Guide to Fees for Extensions, Single Houses and Larger Housing Developments So after having looked at the optimal route for planning permission in my last post I thought…
Pre‑Application Advice, Permission in Principle or Full Planning Application? For small developments in the UK (excluding householder proposals), one of the earliest and most important decisions an applicant must make…
Note fees will be increasing from 01st April 2026 - I will be adjusting the calculator appropriately. Planning application fees continue to be challenging for even professional agents to calculate…
A Practical Strategy for Planning and Built-Environment Teams Across planning, development management, infrastructure, asset management, and policy work, we rely on shared information. Often this information is stored as spreadsheets,…
I needed a simple tool that I can use at home to combine PDF (and some other file types) and then pump this out as a single PDF. This was…
I was thinking about building a garden wall and did some investigations as to a solid construction. Here's a diagram I put together with some notes on the composition. Note…
When dealing with plans everyday its useful to have a basic understanding of some of the acronyms that architects regularly use. Councils also regularly get approached by new home owners…
A guide to non-material amendments, conditions discharge, and planning obligations Gaining planning permission is a major milestone, but it doesn’t mean the Planning work is finished. Across the UK, most…
So although strictly speaking this is not planning related if you are working in planning the building warrant process acts in parallel with planning permission and it is a good…
Digital transformation is often described as a destination — a point at which an organisation becomes “fully digital.” In reality, it’s not a destination at all. It’s a continuous journey…
When you’ve secured planning permission for a new house (or development), the last thing you really want is to get bogged down in paperwork for small design tweaks. But frequently…
When dealing with advertisements in the Scottish planning system, one of the trickiest questions for both officers and applicants is how to handle marginal infringements. These are the “near misses”…
Location Plan App I thought it would be useful to have a simple application that could create simple location plans for more accurate site locations. Its not perfect and its…
So a sister tool to CSV Import created because I was faced with a situation where I wanted to export a view (Housing Land Audit data in this case) into…
This is a practical example of how you can, if you are using Postgres (or any other database), use the power of SQL to speed up the analysis of information.…
When I am on holiday I like wandering around the streets and looking at the landscaping of public spaces. We have recently (2025) been to London and Madrid and both…
Again I wanted to have a baseline overview of the stages of a larger housing development once the development actually starts to be built - again a non-residential development would…
Much like an order of trades for actually building out houses on a housing site there is an order of adminstration that needs to be managed when site construction really…
The Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2025 These come into force on Monday 09 June 2025 Planning Application Fees - Detailed Post - This is…
A simple tool to assist with Route Planning I've had problems before where I am trying to get to a number of different sites and I want to easily have…
Example here QGIS v3.40 Bratislava Opening projects in QGIS can result in multiple and continual requests to authenticate every database connected to a project. This gets old quickly. You will…
It is February 2019 and I had written about using pgrouting to display the shortest distance between 2 points on a network using Postgres and the Ordnance Survey Network on…
1. Prior Notification What it is: A simpler process where the developer notifies the local planning authority (LPA) of their intention to carry out certain types of permitted development. Purpose:…
Importance of the Audit The Housing Land Audit is an annual count of future housing coming forward and a record of historical completions on former site. It is a principle…
Simple Question : Using automation can we get an idea of completions on Scotlands Housing Land Supply sites only from open source data? Here I use the Ordnance Survey's Open…
Requirements - psql tooling installed locally link It continues to be outrageously easy to use AI to help create tools that assist in daily tasks. Here I create a simple…
After submission of a planning application householder and larger applications neighbours and interested parties have the right to comment in support, objecting to or neutrally on an application. What is…
Unfortunately - the shape 2 pgsql command cannot be installed separately (easily ie without resorting to binary files) using the psql tool separate installer. So it is easier just to…
Time limits on existing planning permissions - General Rule 3 years Section 58(1) of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997, as amended 1st October 2022, provides that grant…