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What RBKC expects with a basement application under Local Plan Policy CD11: FRA, SuDS statement, pumped device, draft CTMP, construction method statement and dust report, and the 2026 refusal for a missing CTMP.

Can you build an extension in Flood Zone 3b? Why the Environment Agency rejects voids and stilts as compensation, and the Staines extension AFC took to permission in November 2026 by lowering the front driveway.

A free flood risk vulnerability classification checker for the NPPF 2026: choose the flood zone and the use to get the Annex F class, the Table 3 answer and whether the Sequential and Exception Tests apply.

What an Environment Agency objection on flood risk means for your planning application, the six objections AFC sees most, and the five steps that get one withdrawn, with two AFC jobs and their numbers.

What a ventilation strategy for a council air quality condition must contain: the trigger test, a rear intake, and a named filter train with each test figure. With two AFC jobs in Hammersmith.

A free checker for the Environment Agency's flood risk standing advice for extensions: enter the flood level and floor level in mAOD and see whether the floor meets the 600 mm or 300 mm test, and what to add if it cannot be raised.

Why a council asks for a flood risk assessment when the map you checked says no flood zone: it reads the flood map for planning across the red line. With a decided AFC job in Maidenhead.

A free flood hazard rating calculator for evacuation routes: enter the depth and velocity of each stretch and get the FD2320 hazard rating and class, with AFC's default debris factor from FD2320 Table 13.1.

What a flood emergency plan for a planning application must contain, in officers' own words: the real warning time, a route rated stretch by stretch, a destination outside the flood zones, a refuge for every home and a named owner. From three AFC plans: one accepted on flood grounds, one awaiting decision with the LLFA's comments, one refused.

What Hammersmith and Fulham asks for on flood risk, basements, drainage and ventilation: all-sources FRAs in tidal Flood Zone 3, Policy DC11, living roofs and the filtered ventilation condition.

How high the finished floor level must be in Flood Zone 2 or 3: 600 mm above the flood level, 300 mm with certainty, or resistance and resilience to 600 mm where the floor cannot be raised, with a decided AFC job.

A free floodplain compensation calculator: enter what you build below the design flood level and the ground you lower, and see band by band whether the compensation is level for level, as the Environment Agency checks it.

What a flood officer needs to discharge a drainage condition: existing drainage, a proven discharge point, a justified rate, storage calculations, a layout and a maintenance plan, with a worked Forest of Dean example.

What Richmond upon Thames officers, the LLFA and the Environment Agency ask for in a flood risk assessment: SuDS with every extension, infiltration testing, Critical Drainage Areas and modelled flood levels.

What RBWM case officers and the Environment Agency check in a flood risk assessment in Windsor and Maidenhead: flood and floor levels in mAOD, Flood Zone 3b, climate change allowances, compensation and groundwater.

The air quality NPPF 2026 change worth understanding first is a structural one: air quality no longer has a paragraph of its own. It is now one limb of policy P3, "Living conditions and pollution", in Chapter 17, sitting alongside noise, artificial light, water and soil. The August 2026 Framework replaces the December 2024 version, and while the direction of travel is familiar, several of the words that changed will change what your assessment has to demonstrate. Where air qu

Basement development under the NPPF 2026 got harder to argue, and not because the Framework changed its mind about basements. The classification is the same as it always was. What moved is where the consequences are written down: the August 2026 Framework, which paragraph 1 confirms replaces the December 2024 version, brings the flood risk vulnerability matrix into Annex F. Paragraph 9 states that the annexes are also national planning policy. Basement dwellings sit in the Hi

Sustainable drainage now has a policy of its own. SuDS NPPF 2026 requirements sit at policy F8 in Chapter 18, and they ask for more than the December 2024 Framework did: design in accordance with the Defra National Standards, maintenance arrangements for the anticipated lifetime of the development, and a new national information requirement at Annex C for a statement showing how those standards have been achieved. This post covers what changed, who it catches, and how it affe

The August 2026 National Planning Policy Framework gives climate change a chapter of its own. NPPF 2026 climate change policy now sits in Chapter 5 as three numbered policies, CC1 to CC3, separated from the flood risk policies that used to share the same chapter. Only two of those three apply to planning applications. This post sets out what moved, what is genuinely new, and what a case officer will expect your submission to demonstrate. What changed from NPPF December 2024 U

The sequential test under NPPF 2026 has been rewritten in a way that genuinely helps applicants, and almost nobody is using it yet. Policy F5 of the August 2026 National Planning Policy Framework now caps the geographical area over which alternative sites must be searched — a limit that did not exist in December 2024 — and adds a new exemption route for sites at risk from surface water only. It also carries a trap, because being exempt from the sequential test is not the same