Making your planning appeal
5 The written procedure
5.1 Appeals which are decided by the written procedure are governed by The Written Representations Regulations 2000 (see appendix 1 for the full title). 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 or we may not consider their comments.
Grounds of appeal
5.2 The grounds of appeal, set out on the appeal form, make up your case. If you don’t give them to us, or if we think your grounds are inadequate, we will ask you for more details. If we don’t receive them in time, we won’t deal with your appeal.
Questionnaire
5.3 The regulations say that the LPA must fill in a questionnaire and send it to you and us with documents to support their decision. These documents include:
- copies of relevant letters from any public organisation and interested people about the application;
- the planning officer’s report to committee, if available;
- any relevant committee minutes; and
- extracts from the relevant plans or policies that the decision was based on.
They will say if they are going to give another written statement. If they do, you will have a chance to comment on it.
Six-week statement
5.4 If you or the LPA want to add any more comments, you must send us
two copies within six weeks of the starting date. Your comments should
relate only to issues raised by the questionnaire and any supporting
documents.
We will not normally accept late statements. Instead we will
return them.
If possible you should follow the guidelines on how to set out your statement in Appendix 4.
We will send a copy of your comments to the LPA, and send you a copy of anything they send us. We will also send you comments we received from interested people.
Nine-week comments
5.5 You and the LPA can send us comments on each other's statement and on the comments made by interested people. Your comments must relate to these matters only, no new evidence is allowed. You cannot add to your grounds of appeal or six-week statement. You must send us two copies of your comments within nine weeks from the starting date. We will not normally accept late comments. Instead we will return them.
5.6 Don't comment just for the sake of it.
Late comments
5.7 We expect everyone involved to keep to the timetable. If you, the LPA or interested people send comments after the time limit ends, the Inspector will not normally consider them when deciding your appeal.
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
5.8 We will send the appeal papers to the Inspector. He or she will study the proposals, plans and comments, and will visit the site to judge the likely effect of your proposal on its surroundings.
5.9 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 the Inspector will not meet anyone. Anything you want to say about a proposal must be in writing.
5.10 When we arrange an accompanied site visit, 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.
5.11 If the Inspector needs to go on private land to make the inspection, you must arrange this. We will tell anyone who asks us the date and time of the visit.
5.12 When the Inspector makes an accompanied site visit, they will introduce themselves and find out the names of everyone there. They will make sure that everyone agrees that they are dealing with the plans the LPA has considered. If people disagree, the Inspector will ask them to sort out the disagreement between themselves. The Inspector won’t take part in these discussions. They can’t accept any changes to the proposal at the site visit. If you want to change the proposal, you must ask for it in writing, even for very small changes.
5.13 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.
5.14 Sometimes, the owners of the land next to the appeal site ask the Inspector to look at the planned development from their property. If the Inspector thinks this is necessary they 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 to look at the planned development from there, you and the LPA must go too.
See the diagram of the written procedure at appendix 3.
