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Planning Appeals
If your planning application is refused, despair not. You essentially have 2 courses of action available to you. The first approach is to ask your agent to negotiate an amendment with the Local Authority and arrive at a scheme that both you and the Local Authority are happy with. This will then mean that you will have to re-submit the amended planning proposal and await a decision by the Local Authority. In some instances, if the Local Authority fails to reach a decision, you can appeal on the grounds of non-determination.
The second course of action is to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate. Only the person who made the application for planning permission can appeal. Should you feel aggrieved and wish to pursue and appeal there are 3 processes available to you.
The first and by far the most popular is the written representation appeal which is the preferred approach for householder applications. The second form of appeal is by way of a hearing before an Inspector and the last and most formal is by way of an Inquiry. The Inquiry is the most costly and is largely reserved for the most complicated of applications that tend to be of strategic or national importance.
Appeals are considered by a Planning Inspector appointed by the Secretary of State in England.
As a rule of thumb appeals should be logged within 6 months of the date on the refused decision notice (12 weeks for householder appeals). If you fail to do this, it is likely that the appeal will not be valid.
Why Appeal? According to the Planning Inspectorate, in the period 2011-12, 15,857 appeals were received and of these, 5029 were allowed. In percentage terms, that means that of all the appeals that were determined (not including those withdrawn), 34% were allowed. You therefore have more than a 1 in 3 chance of your appeal being successful. Should you wish to pursue this approach, please contact a Planning Agent who can act on your behalf.
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