Government introduces amendments to the Town & Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Act requiring noise to be considered

07 June 2016 by Nick Treby, Director

On 6 April 2016, the government introduced some amendments to the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Act.

If you are considering a change of use, converting offices to homes (Class O) the amendments are significant in acoustic terms. They introduce the need to consider noise as part of the permitted development application, though not in all cases, and not from all sources.

The applicant is now required to apply to the Local Planning Authority (LPA) for determination as to whether their prior approval is needed as to “impacts of noise from commercial premises on the intended occupiers of the development”.

Commercial Premises is a tightly defined term in the Regulations. It means “any premises normally used for the purpose of any commercial or industrial undertaking, which existed on the date of application…and includes any premises under the Licensing Act 2003(a) or any other place of public entertainment”.

Therefore, this means that if a site is affected by noise from industrial activities, noise from air conditioning plant relating to a commercial or industrial undertaking, or music from a venue for example, the LPA could expect an acoustic assessment as part of the Permitted Development determination process.

Many sites would not be affected by commercial noise, but you need to ask the LPA the question. The regulations are new so it may become, in practice, necessary for the developer to show that their site is not affected rather than wait for the LPA to respond to the enquiry and decide for themselves.

It is significant that if the noise sources affecting a site are not from commercial premises as defined, then they need not be considered. This means that noise from transportation sources (road, rail, air etc) do not need to be assessed, and neither does noise if it is not from a commercial premises (so for example, mechanical plant from a school or college affecting the residential scheme wouldn’t need to be assessed).

The change might have implications for glazing, facade and ventilation strategies. We have a lot of experience of working on converted buildings, including historic and listed buildings, and rather than replace hundreds of windows, a secondary sash is often a very effective solution if the site is in a noisy location.

Even though the regulations do not require an assessment of noise from transportation sources, it is often worth considering to bring the dwellings to modern standards in terms of noise and help with their marketing.

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