Richard Clews

Senior Associate Director, National Development & Planning

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Richard

And it can be disheartening when your dream project hits a wall if the plans are rejected.

Why are applications rejected?

There could be a number of reasons for rejecting an application, from the fact it doesn’t fit in with local design regulations to the impact on neighbouring properties.

Planning applications need to consider national planning policy, Local Development Frameworks, whether they cause a loss of loss of light or privacy to neighbours, safety of local roads and general design, appearance and materials. This last point is especially pertinent for listed properties or those in protected areas.

Rejections can also occur because of the weight given by councils to certain policies. Councils can often favour local planning policies over national ones. But in reality, a national policy like the National Planning Policy Framework trumps local ones. You - or your planning consultant - need to prove this in your appeal.

Before the appeal

Before you get to appeal, a good tip is to write the initial application as if it was going to end up in appeal, especially if you think there are areas of your application that might cause problems.

Set out your case early and tackle these potential issues in a rational manner. This means you can reference to the council how you planned to tackle these issues in your original application.

It’s also worth contacting – or getting your planning consultant to contact – the local authority that rejected the appeal. Talk with them to see if there’s a specific aspect of your plan that stopped it from being accepted. It could be an easy fix, meaning a revised application could be easily and quickly submitted. Moving fast on any project is vital to saving costs and keeping momentum going.

Launching an appeal

You can appeal any decision you believe to be wrong. Around a third of all householder appeals are successful, according to government figures. You can also appeal if the decision wasn’t made within eight weeks.

Appeals are made to the Planning Inspectorate. There are three types of appeals - written representations, hearing and public inquiries. Public inquiries are usually for the most serious and largest applications and usually require legal advice and support. Hearings are more common, but would often require a planning consultant who specialises in the issues you’re dealing with. Most householder appeals are written representations.

You need to lodge the appeal within six months of the date of the decision, or six months after the decision was actually due. In all cases, the person who made the application has to be the one that lodges the appeal. If you’ve been served with an enforcement notice, you need to appeal within 28 days.

Before writing your appeal, review a number of appeal decisions that relate to the same issues you’re dealing with and use them as guidance. Prepare your statement around the way the inspectors handled the issues.

You should also outline your appeal in the same way that Inspectors outline their decisions and focus on the reasons for refusal set out by the Council. This not only helps you frame it in a way the Inspector will understand, but also allows you to use the specific language and jargon used in these situations.

Although there’s no fee to appeal, if you submit one without a solid argument behind it you could be liable for any costs incurred.

What’s next?

Appeals should be made in the first instance to the Planning Inspectorate, but all documents and the appeal itself should also be sent to your local council’s planning team. To launch your appeal you should have copies of:

• the original application
• site ownership certificate
• the decision notice

plans, drawings and documents you sent to the local planning authority

You’ll also need to include a map of the surrounding area and any other supporting documents.

The way it usually works is that your appeal statement is read first by the Inspector, which should outline why the council should actually have approved it. Only after this will the Inspector read the council’s submission as to why it was rejected.

Once the appeal is lodged it’ll be made public on the appeals casework portal for comments. The public have five weeks to make their views known on your appeal. Anyone who commented on the original application will be informed that an appeal has been lodged.

After this, it’s a waiting game. And it could be a lengthy wait, which means the whole development could be shut down for a considerable time. Contingency plans should be included in any developments for such occasions.

You should get a decision within 19 weeks, though the Planning Inspectorate says it aims to deal with 80% of householder appeals within eight weeks. Hearings and public inquiries can take much longer – even up to a year sometimes. These are usually for larger projects though.

Hopefully your appeal will be successful, but if it’s not then there’s always the option of taking the matter to the High Court. A lawyer would need to be appointed who would go through your case with you before taking it to the next level.