Specialist – Reducing Upfront Costs – Parker Planning Services

With in-house specialist services including topography, archaeology, heritage, ecology, highways, transport and more- we are well placed to help you reduce upfront costs prior to securing planning permission. Our specialist services can be commissioned on a stand alone basis or as part of an application we are dealing with.

An Archaeological Example – 

Before the County Council’s Historic Environment Service would comment and assess the application further, they asked our client to commission a geophysical survey. Based on our archaeology team’s professional advise; they changed their position to comment on the outline planning permission with just an archaeological desk-based assessment instead. The geophysical survey would then be commissioned as a post-determination condition on the outline planning permission. This resulted in reducing upfront costs and risk for our client prior to securing planning permission.

The Science Behind it: For geophysical surveys we use a machine, normally a Magnetometer that detects archaeological features below the surface, this measures the high levels of iron associated with human activity. Often we complement this with more traditional fieldwalking and a metal detector survey – this helps us gain an understanding of the archaeological potential of a site and allows a targeted, cost-effective approach to any intrusive investigations that may be required.