Lewisham appeal costs have been awarded after the council failed to identify the need for protected-species evidence early enough, forcing an appellant to commission bat surveys urgently during a successful planning appeal.
The appeal concerned 1-3A Doggett Road, Catford, where permission was refused for a four-storey building containing nine self-contained flats and a commercial unit. Inspector H Marriott allowed appeal 6004929 and made a separate partial costs award against the London Borough of Lewisham.
The decisions are useful well beyond the costs point. They distinguish HMO licensing standards from planning quality, apply the new August 2026 flood-risk Sequential Test and show how a proposal can conflict with that test yet still succeed in the wider planning balance.
Lewisham appeal costs were limited to the urgent survey premium
The appellant sought a full award of costs. The Inspector rejected most of that application.
Lewisham’s substantive refusal reasons were supported by a reasoned planning assessment. The fact that the Inspector ultimately disagreed with the council did not make the refusal unreasonable.
The protected-species issue was different. The council’s ecologist had concerns during the application process, but the lack of appropriate bat evidence was not included in the reasons for refusal.
Lewisham did not explain why the point had not been raised properly at an earlier stage.
During the appeal the appellant had to commission a Preliminary Roost Assessment followed by a Bat Emergence and Re-Entry Survey at short notice to fit the appeal timetable.
The Inspector accepted that protected-species surveys might legitimately have been required in any event. The ordinary cost of that work was therefore not caused by Lewisham’s unreasonable behaviour.
The award was deliberately narrower. Lewisham must meet only the additional costs incurred because the two surveys had to be obtained on an expedited basis, over and above what they would have cost if commissioned in the normal way.
That is an important practical distinction. An appeal costs award compensates unnecessary or wasted appeal expense caused by unreasonable behaviour. It does not automatically reimburse work the appellant would properly have needed anyway.
HMO licensing did not prove the accommodation was good quality
The existing building contained a 13-bedroom HMO, although the Inspector saw that one room was being used as ancillary office space.
Lewisham Local Plan Policy HO8 protects HMOs subject to tests dealing with their quality and replacement. The council argued that the reference to appropriate standards should be read as compliance with HMO licensing requirements.
The Inspector disagreed. The policy’s supporting text is concerned with protecting good-quality shared accommodation, not merely accommodation that satisfies minimum licensing requirements.
A previous Inspector had already recorded that occupiers shared two small kitchens and five bathrooms and had no communal living room.
At the current site visit, Inspector Marriott found limited communal and kitchen space for the number of occupiers and relatively few shower rooms.
She also found roof rooms with small windows and restricted headroom, no bathroom facilities on the same floor as those roof rooms, and basement rooms with little meaningful outlook.
The HMO may have held a licence, but that did not answer the separate planning-policy question about the quality of the accommodation.
Planning Geek analysis: licensing and planning are separate regulatory regimes. A licence can establish compliance with the relevant licensing standards without proving that accommodation meets a local planning policy test framed around quality and suitability.
Our Class C4 HMO guide explains the planning use-class position.
The flood-risk Sequential Test was not satisfied
The northern part of the appeal site lies in Flood Zone 3A, with the remainder in Flood Zone 2. The northern area was also identified as having high surface-water and groundwater flood risk.
No adequate flood-risk Sequential Test had been undertaken. The Inspector therefore found conflict with Lewisham Local Plan Policy SD7 and national Policy F5 in the August 2026 National Planning Policy Framework.
Policy F5 aims to steer new development to areas with the lowest risk of flooding. Where the test applies, development should not be located in a flood-risk area where a reasonably available alternative site appropriate for the development exists at lower risk.
This is the flood-risk Sequential Test. It is not the separate town-centre Sequential Test for main town centre uses.
Planning Geek’s Flood Risk Assessment guide explains the flood Sequential and Exception Tests under the August 2026 NPPF.
Failing the Sequential Test did not automatically end the appeal
The Inspector did not dismiss the Sequential Test conflict as unimportant. She expressly said the ability to make the development safe did not remove the need to apply the test.
The conflict still weighed in favour of finding conflict with the development plan as a whole.
However, the 2026 NPPF changed the policy framework. Policy F5 no longer says that failing the Sequential Test automatically requires refusal. The wider national decision-making policies still had to be applied.
There were material flood-safety benefits. The proposal would remove residential sleeping accommodation from the basement, where HMO bedrooms currently existed, and therefore reduce the number of residents exposed in the area of greatest flood risk.
The Flood Risk Assessment also proposed flood-resistance and resilience measures and registration for Environment Agency flood warnings.
The Environment Agency raised no objection, and the Inspector was satisfied that the development could be made safe for its lifetime without increasing flood risk elsewhere.
Against the policy conflict, the scheme would provide nine homes in a borough with significant housing under-delivery, redevelop previously developed land and make better use of a highly sustainable site next to Catford Bridge station.
Under national Policy S4, the Inspector found that the benefits of approval would not be substantially outweighed by the adverse effects when assessed against the national decision-making policies.
The development therefore qualified as sustainable development despite conflict with the development plan over the Sequential Test.
The point is not that the Sequential Test no longer matters. It clearly did. The point is that failure of an individual policy test does not necessarily end the wider planning balance unless the policy framework makes that consequence unavoidable.
Late ecology issues can create avoidable appeal costs
The appellant’s bat surveys ultimately resolved the protected-species issue. They concluded that the proposal was unlikely to harm protected species and that the works could proceed without further surveys or a licence.
The procedural lesson is about timing. Planning authorities should raise material ecology requirements early enough for applicants to respond in the normal application process wherever possible.
Planning Geek’s protected species guide explains when wildlife evidence can be a material planning consideration, while the ecological appraisal guide covers when further species surveys may be needed.
Read the appeal decision 6004929 and the separate costs decision, and the current August 2026 National Planning Policy Framework.
Created: 14th September 2026
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