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Clifton and Hotwells
Improvement Society (CHIS)

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CHIS Planning Applications

Gill Blakeman (Planning Coordinator).
crane towering above the area at corner of Merchants Road and Regent Street

Comments about planning applications to: Planning, Transport and Sustainable Development, Brunel House, St Georges Road, Bristol BS1 5UY. email: development.management@bristol.gov.uk Telephone: 0117 9223976

Comments about planning applications when being discussed at a planning meeting to: democratic.services@bristol.gov.uk The planners report will be put up on the meetings section of the Council website http://www.bristol.gov.uk/meeting 7 days before the actual meeting as well as in the Council planning section. Extra comments can be made upto noon on the previous day.

Planning enforcement queries to: enforcement.management@bristol.gov.uk Telephone: 0117 922 3000

Page contents:

Monthly Report


We do inform ourselves regarding every planning application by looking at the details. We are also now involved in many pre-applications.

Current month's applications report
Gill's and Conservation Advisory Panel notes are in italics. Where marked *** CHIS has objected).

Previous Planning Notes

Weekly lists for BS8

We are now showing the official Bristol City Council
weekly lists for BS8
(always 2 weeks behind the application being put in, but before the application is put on the lamp post) for more uptodate information.
Note that if you need help to comment about an application, you should join CHIS!

Applications currently or recently being considered by CHIS

Details can be found on the
applications considered page

Local List

The council is creating a list of buildings, structures and sites that do not already have listed status but which are valued and are considered worthy of preservation. This may be by virtue of their quality, style or historical importance. Nominations can be made using the contribute function on Know Your Place or by email to: conservation@bristol.gov.uk, telephone 0117 922 3044 for more information. All nominated sites must be in the Bristol City Council area. An independent panel will assess the nominations (to be approved by September 2013) using a set of criteria based around these themes: Other factors such as completeness, rarity and the degree to which they may be thought to be typical of Bristol, such as in the use of local building materials, will also be considered.

While the National Heritage List for England, administered by English Heritage, is concerned with buildings and sites of clearly national significance, a Local List provides the opportunity to identify those features of the local scene that are particularly valued by communities as distinctive elements of the local historic environment.

A list of locally-listed buildings and sites will appear on Council conservation page, together with detailed descriptions. This will be updated as new buildings and sites are added. They will also be shown on the Know Your Place mapping system.

The National planning policy framework (2012) describes a heritage asset as “a building, monument, site, place, area or landscape identified as having a degree of significance meriting consideration in planning decisions, because of its heritage interest.” The term ‘heritage asset’ includes designated heritage assets and assets identified by the local planning authority (including local listing). The NPPF advises local authorities that in assessing proposals which only have local heritage status (“non-designated assets”) “a balanced judgement will be required having regard to the scale of any harm or loss and the significance of the heritage asset.” (NPPF paragraph 135).

Conservation Area Character Appraisals

These help residents and us to understand the history of an area and why it is special. They help shape future developments and planning policies, as well as giving residents an idea of what enhancements could be made. The Coucil has undertaken a review of Bristol's existing conservation areas. This is through the production of a character appraisal and set of management proposals for each area. The consultation and adoption process for each appraisal will give it enough weight to be a significant consideration in making planning decisions, and at appeal.

CHIS spent 2 years preparatory work for the Clifton and Hotwells Character Appraisal and Management Proposals
Character Appraisal Maps (building ages, routes and spaces, building types (listed etc), land use)
Document and were extensively involved throughout its drafting before it was published in June 2010. We received special thanks for our work. It is 100 pages long (it could have been twice as long!) with many photographs mostly taken by us to illustrate our points. It was a wonderful project to get involved in and made us look around and enjoy our wonderful conservation area even more. The appraisal is to be found on the Council website and it can be purchased. We refer to it in most of our comments about planning applications.

Bristol Neighbourhood Network

3 Feb 2014: Bristol Neighbourhood Network: have recently re-launched their website, and of interest will be the landing page, the Guidance for the Developer section, and the list and map of member groups.

More Information

Our page Planning Advice and Information includes

Annual Planning reports

Localism Act

On Saturday 24th March 2012 we went to a Conference about "Planning our future" The Localism Act and neighbourhood planning.

The Localism Act is intended to give communities a real voice in the planning system. It allows community groups to form `Neighbourhood Forums' and to create Neighbourhood Development Plans, to help shape development in their area.
But how will it work in practice? How much power will community groups really have? And just how will decisions be made about which groups act as the Neighbourhood Forum for their area?
CHIS will write an article in one of the newsletters when they have had time to digest the information.
Speakers included Paul Miner (CPRE Senior Planning Campaigner) and Sarah O'Driscoll (Bristol City Council Strategic Planning Service Manager).
There were also talks by `front-runner' groups from the Myrtle Triangle (Bedminster) and Backwell about the reality of producing Neighbourhood Development Plans, and discussions on the more awkward questions that the Localism Bill has brought up - just what are the limits of Localism? How can community groups effectively involve and engage the people in their area in planning? And can communities really use the Localism Act to say no to unwanted development?
For more information please contact:

Joe Evans Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) Avonside 07854 741130 director@cpreavonside.org.uk

Application suffixes

Ever wondered what the suffix on the end of and application meant? eg 11/03339/F
A Advertisement
COND Discharge of conditions
CP Lawful Development Certificate
F Full Planning
H Full Planning (Householders)
LA Listed Building Consent (Alter/Extend)
LC Conservation Area Consent
M Reserved Matters
NMA Non material amendment of planning permission
VC Works to Trees in Conservation Areas
VD Dead/Dying/Dangerous trees
X Variation/Deletion of a Condition

Lawful Development Certificate

While it should be possible in most cases to decide whether or not a proposed project qualifies as permitted development (PD) there will inevitably be instances where the decision is less clear cut.

If there is any ambiguity or question over whether your proposal passes the permitted development tests you have a number of options. It may, for instance, be possible to alter your plans to ensure they meet PD limits and conditions.

For peace of mind you may choose to apply for a Lawful Development Certificate. This is not the same as planning permission but is proof that your household building work is lawful.

This option is well worth considering even if you are sure your project is permitted development. If you should later want to sell your property an LDC may be helpful to answer queries raised by potential buyers or their legal representatives. As such, it is important that all paperwork and records relating to your property are clear and up to date.

Closure of Planning Reception, Brunel House

It is no longer cost effective for the number of visits to the reception, which has fallen from 50 /day to 50/week, to keep two officers just sitting on reception. You now need to make a call to the planning office saying which application was wanted and giving them enough time to get the documents out. Apparently some of the older information is now kept off site near the Create Centre so if you are looking for background information that needs to be collected from there they would need 24 hours to get the documents over to Brunel House. Any new applications are kept in house so only a short period of notice is needed. They are also talking about getting some larger screens installed in planning reception so that people can look at drawings on screen. Apparently a number of applications are now submitted online so that it is costly for the planners to print them out for people to look at on paper. It is therefore going to be more usual to have to look at drawings on screen.
I understand that there is going to be a 3 month trial period after which we can feed back any problems we have found with the new system. Let me know how the service works for you if you use it so that we can make sure that comments are taken account of. The bonus is that all applications including tree applications are now going to be scanned and put on line.
There are a number of Customer Service points where the application drawings can be viewed free of charge on PublicAccess, the council planning application service
Nearest Customer Service Point addresses:
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