Making your Lawful Development Certificate Appeal - November 2004
4 The written procedure
4.1 The written procedure for lawful development certificate appeals follows the spirit of The Town and Country Planning (Enforcement) (Written Representations Procedure) ( England ) Regulations 2002 .
The timetable for the written procedure is designed to make the appeal proceed quickly and fairly. Everyone involved in the appeal should keep to the timetable.
Grounds of appeal
4.2 The grounds of appeal, set out on the appeal form, make up your case. If you don’t give them to us, or we think your grounds are inadequate, we may ask you for more details.
Questionnaire
4.3 The regulations say that the LPA must fill in a questionnaire and send it to you and us with documents to support their decision.
6-week statement
4.4 If you, or the LPA, want to add any more comments, you must send two copies of this statement within six weeks of the ‘starting date’. We will send a copy of your statement to the LPA and send you a copy of any statement they send us. We will also send you any comments from interested people. If possible you should follow the guidelines on how to set out your statement in Appendix 4.
We will not normally accept late statements. Instead we will return them to you.
9-week comments
4.5 Within nine weeks of the starting date, you and the LPA can send us any comments on each other’s statement and on the comments made by any interested people.
We will not normally accept late comments. Instead we will return them.
4.6 Don’t comment just for the sake of it. Only send us further comments if you have something new to say.
Using e-mail
4.7 If you send us your documents by e-mail, you only need to send us one copy of each. However, if you post your documents, please send us two copies of everything and put the full appeal reference number on each copy.
Late comments
4.8 We expect everyone involved to keep to the timetable. If the Inspector asks for more information from you or the LPA, we will send a copy of that information to you or the LPA. We will allow time for comment.
The site visit
4.9 We will send the appeal papers to the Inspector. He or she will study the appeal papers, reason(s) for refusal and comments, and will often visit the site. If a site visit is not going to be made we will let you know and give you the opportunity to make any comment.
4.10 If you said on your appeal form that the Inspector can view the site from public land, and the LPA agree, we will arrange an unaccompanied site visit where our Inspector will not meet anyone. Anything you want to say about your appeal must be in writing.
4.11 When we arrange an accompanied site visit both you and the LPA have to be there or have someone to represent you. Unless there is someone from both sides there, the Inspector will make the inspection alone. If this isn’t possible, we will rearrange the visit for a time when all sides can be there.
4.12 If the Inspector needs to go on to private land to make the inspection, you must arrange this. Anyone who asks will be told the date and time of the visit.
4.13 When the Inspector makes an accompanied site visit, he or she will introduce themselves and find out the names of everyone there. The Inspector will make sure everyone agrees that they are dealing with the same site the LPA considered in your application. If people disagree, the Inspector may ask them to sort out the disagreement between themselves. The Inspector won’t take part in these discussions. He or she cannot accept any changes at the site visit.
4.14 The Inspector will ask people to point out any physical features on, or near, the site. He or she may also want to confirm particular features people talked about in the written comments they sent us. But you can’t discuss why you think your appeal should be allowed.
4.15 Sometimes, the owners of the land next to the appeal site ask the Inspector to look at the site from their property. If the Inspector thinks this is necessary he or she will tell you and the LPA at the site inspection. If the Inspector goes onto someone else’s land as part of the site visit you and the LPA must go too.
See the diagram of the written procedure at Appendix 1.
