Planning Appeals: how to appeal a decision

If your application has been refused, you have a right of appeal to the Planning Inspectorate, but the rules changed on 1st April 2026, and they changed a great deal. For section 78(1) appeals relating to applications made on or after 1st April 2026, the starting procedure is now Part 1 and the Inspector works principally from the material that was already before the council. A weak application is therefore much harder to rescue at appeal. This page is the starting point for a planning appeal: what changed, when you can appeal, which procedure you are likely to get, what it costs, and where to go for the detail on each. If you would rather see every route laid out at a glance, our guide to the types of planning appeal lists them all, with a line on when each one applies.

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What changed on 1st April 2026?

The Town and Country Planning (Appeals) (Written Representations Procedure) (England) (Amendment and Saving Provision) Regulations 2026 (snappy title – eh!) substantially expanded the existing expedited Part 1 procedure. The headline is simple: for section 78(1) appeals relating to applications made on or after 1st April 2026, Part 1 is now the starting procedure unless the Planning Inspectorate moves the appeal to Part 2, a hearing or an inquiry.

That is wider than refusal appeals. The current Planning Inspectorate guide expressly includes appeals against conditions, refusals of prior approval or reserved matters, section 73 and section 73A refusals, and appeals involving permission in principle or technical details consent.

For an ordinary section 78 appeal, the date that matters is the date the application was made, not the date you appeal. Advertisement consent appeals are different: their 2026 written-representations trigger is the date the application was determined. For ordinary section 78 appeals:

• application made on or after 1st April 2026, the new rules apply
• application made on or before 31st March 2026, the old rules still apply, even if you lodge the appeal today

Both systems are running side by side, and will do for some time. The government maintains two separate procedural guides, so check which one applies to you before you do anything else.

Under Part 1 the Inspector normally decides the appeal from the material that was already before the council, together with the appeal form and the documents required by the procedure. There is no separate statement of case and new evidence is accepted only in limited circumstances, such as a material change after the decision. If the reason you lost was a report that should have accompanied the application, do not assume the appeal will let you add it later. All Planning Geek applications are now prepared with appeal-readiness in mind. 

How to avoid a planning appeal in the first place!

Whilst there is no way to guarantee a successful application there are a few steps you can do to ensure you have a greater chance of success. This has always been good advice. Since 1st April 2026 it is close to essential.

Ensure that all the reports are submitted. Here at Planning Geek we are often looking at appeal decision notices. One caught my eye just prior to writing this page. The applicant had used a planning consultant. Which is a great start. However that consultant had clearly rushed the application. He had failed to realise that the site was in Flood Zone 3. He didn’t submit a Flood Risk Assessment (FRA) despite spotting that it was also a Flood Zone 2. He then failed to notice a window.

There wasn’t a design & access statement. All these helped towards a refusal. And in turn the refusal of an appeal as the inspectorate could only consider what was in front of him or her. Both the planning officer and inspector commented on the missing FRA and other items.

When that was written, “the inspectorate could only consider what was in front of him or her” was a description of how Inspectors behaved in practice. Under the new Part 1 procedure it is the rule. The same appeal today would fail faster, and the applicant would have no way to put the FRA in.

Submitting a good application will help towards getting that planning through – sure it might cost you a few more pounds, but with the removal of the free-go for application fees, you need to consider whether going for the cheapest option is really the best strategy. See our guide to planning fees for what an application costs.

Should that application be refused, then the inspectorate will have all the details and reports to make a sound decision.

When can you appeal?

There are three common situations in which people talk about making a planning appeal, but they are not all the same legal route.

• You disagree with the decision
• The decision isn’t issued within the timescales allowed for the application – file for non-determination
• You have been issued with an enforcement notice – that is a separate statutory appeal against the notice rather than an appeal against a planning application decision

Only the person who made the application can appeal under section 78. A neighbour who dislikes a permission has no third-party right of appeal against it. If the complaint is that the permission was granted unlawfully, a judicial review in the High Court may be available, but that is a challenge to legality rather than a second decision on the planning merits. Where the applicant appeals a refusal, our guide to objecting to a planning appeal explains what neighbours will be told, and when further representations are and are not allowed.

One thing to weigh first. If amending the scheme would overcome the council’s reasons for refusal, the government’s own guidance says you should submit a new application rather than appeal. Very occasionally a refusal leaves land with no worthwhile use at all, and in that narrow case the answer is not an appeal but a purchase notice, which can require the council to buy the land from you. Under the expanded Part 1 procedure that matters more than it used to, because an appeal is not a reliable route for introducing a revised scheme or evidence that should have been before the council. If you have just opened a refusal and are not sure which way to turn, start with our plain English guide to what to do when a planning application is refused.

How long do you have to appeal?

It depends entirely on what you applied for, and the range is wide. A refused householder application gives you twelve weeks. Most other refusals give you six months. A refused sign gives you eight weeks. Works to a protected tree and a high hedges remedial notice normally give you 28 days. An enforcement notice is different: the appeal must be received before the effective date stated on the notice, which must normally be at least 28 days after service. At the far end of the range, an ordinary section 191 or 192 lawful development certificate appeal normally has no statutory deadline, although the Planning Inspectorate expects a timely appeal; listed building lawful development certificates are different and carry a six-month limit.

Work out your own date before you do anything else, and treat it as immovable. Some routes do allow the Secretary of State to accept a late appeal, and we have checked two of those at source, but that is a discretion rather than a right and it is not something to plan around.

One trap is worth knowing about now. If an enforcement notice has been served on the same or very similar development, a much shorter twenty eight day deadline can override every period above.

Small business premises are the case people most often get wrong. A refusal for a shop, cafe, pub or takeaway can carry the same twelve week deadline as a householder application rather than the usual six months, and whether it does turns on a list of use classes that was scrapped in 2020 and then frozen in place for this one purpose. Our guide to a minor commercial appeal sets out the four conditions and explains why a pub or a takeaway still counts.

For the full list by application type, when the clock starts, and how that trap works, see our guide to appeal timescales.

Five of these routes have their own guides, and between them they cover the whole range. A refusal of consent to work on a protected tree gives you one of the tightest deadlines in the system, and our guide to a tree preservation order appeal also covers the compensation claim that most people never hear about. A refusal of listed building consent gives you one of the longest, and our guide to a listed building consent appeal covers the unusual ground that lets you argue the building should never have been listed. A refused sign gives you eight weeks, and our guide to an advertisement consent appeal explains why only two considerations are allowed to count. The odd one out is an ordinary section 191 or 192 certificate appeal, because there is normally no statutory deadline, although the Planning Inspectorate expects it to be made in a timely way. A listed building lawful development certificate is different and has a six-month deadline. Our guide to a lawful development certificate appeal explains both routes. And a tall garden hedge is the one case where the neighbour can appeal as well as the person who received the notice, which our guide to a high hedges appeal explains, along with the four grounds you are allowed to argue. A Community Infrastructure Levy bill is different again, because it is not a planning decision at all: our guide to CIL appeals covers the review you have to ask for first, and the separate routes to the Valuation Office Agency and the Planning Inspectorate.

Which appeal procedure will you get?

Most appeals are decided on paper, without anybody meeting. That route is called written representations and has two procedures, Part 1 and Part 2. For ordinary section 78 appeals where the application was made on or after 1st April 2026, the expedited Part 1 procedure applies to section 78(1) appeals more generally, including appeals against conditions and refusals of prior approval, reserved matters, section 73 or section 73A applications, permission in principle and technical details consent. Advertisement consent appeals use a different trigger date: for those, the 2026 written-representations change turns on when the application was determined. Which procedure applies determines how much, if anything, can be added at appeal.

Under Part 1 there is normally no opportunity to introduce evidence or arguments that were not before the council. The Inspector also has the decision notice, officer report or committee minutes, appeal form and council questionnaire, and exceptionally may accept material arising from a genuine material change in circumstances. A report that was simply omitted from the application will not normally be rescued at appeal.

See our guide to written representations appeals for which procedure applies to you, what each one allows, and the narrow grounds on which new evidence is still accepted.

A smaller number of appeals are dealt with face to face instead. See hearings and inquiries for what happens at each, who can turn up and speak, and how the Inspectorate decides which you get.

Whichever procedure is used, the Inspector will normally need to see the appeal site. Our guide to a planning appeal site visit explains what the visit is for, what you can point out and why it is not the place to argue your case.

At an inquiry an organised group can go further than simply turning up to speak, by asking for Rule 6 party status. That makes it a main party at the inquiry, alongside the council and the appellant, with the work and the cost risk that go with it.

Very occasionally the decision leaves local hands altogether. The government can take over an application before the council has decided it, or take over an appeal that an inspector would otherwise have decided. Our guide to called-in applications and recovered appeals explains when that happens, the right to be heard you keep, and the right of appeal you lose.

How do you appeal?

Appeals are made online through the government’s Appeal a Planning Decision service. The old Appeals Casework Portal has closed to new appeals. Discontinuance notice appeals are the exception and still go in by email.

You must submit within the deadline, and the Inspectorate must have the appeal form and the essential supporting documents before it expires. Once you have submitted, send a copy to the council. If you are appealing more than one application, each needs its own separate appeal.

If you do not own the whole appeal site, you must serve notice on the other owners, and on any agricultural tenants, within the 21-day period before the appeal is made. Do not leave ownership notification until after submission.

Two further points that are new or easily missed:

• Artificial intelligence should be declared. Planning Inspectorate guidance says you should tell it if AI has been used to create or substantially change any part of your documents, information or data. Routine spellchecking, grammar suggestions and formatting tools do not need a declaration
• Do not appeal until you are ready. Requests to postpone an appeal or put it in abeyance are refused unless there are exceptional reasons. Once it is in, it moves

What does an appeal cost?

There is no fee to make a planning appeal. All parties are expected to meet their own expenses.

Costs can, however, be awarded against a party that behaves unreasonably, and the new regime creates a specific risk. Submitting evidence at appeal that could have been anticipated at application stage may expose you to an award of costs, and the guidance singles out the obvious case: where an application was refused because information was missing, and that information then turns up at appeal.

If you already have a costs award and the other side will not pay, our guide to recovering a planning appeal costs award explains how to work out the sum, try to agree it and use the civil costs procedure if agreement fails.

The application fee itself is a separate matter, so see our guide to planning fees in England.

How long will you have to wait for an appeal decision?

Written representations appeals are the quickest route, and the whole point of the April 2026 changes is to make them quicker still. Where an appeal goes to a hearing or an inquiry, it takes longer. The Inspectorate aims to set a date 10 to 14 weeks from the start for a hearing, and 13 to 16 weeks for an inquiry. All parties need to be ready from the outset.

Published average waiting times move about, and the new procedure has not been running long enough to give a reliable figure. Rather than quote a number that will be out of date by the time you read it, check the Planning Inspectorate’s current statistics, or ask us and we will tell you what we are seeing.

What else the Planning Inspectorate decides

Most people arrive here because of a refused planning application, but the Planning Inspectorate handles a far wider list of cases than planning appeals. If your problem is one of these, the Inspectorate is still the body that deals with it, even though it is not a planning appeal:

• public rights of way, including orders that change the definitive map of footpaths and bridleways
• common land
• coastal access
• compulsory purchase orders
• schemes under the Transport and Works Act, such as railways and tramways
• harbour revision orders
• side road orders, which go alongside new or altered main roads
• bridge tolls

Most of these sit outside the everyday planning questions this site is written for, so our coverage is selective. Where a topic overlaps directly with development proposals, such as common land and village greens, we explain that overlap separately. The Planning Inspectorate explains the wider range of casework on its own pages at GOV.UK.

If a development proposal itself needs a public footpath, bridleway or road moved, that is a separate development-related order rather than a planning appeal. See our guide to diverting a public footpath or road to build.

More information

Planning Geek is able to assist you in submitting an appeal. Our consultants are used to what is required. Please fill in the form here and we will come back to you with a fee proposal.

Given how the rules have changed, the most valuable thing we can do is often to look at the refusal before you appeal, and tell you honestly whether an appeal or a fresh application is the better bet. Under the expanded Part 1 procedure that judgement is worth more than it used to be, because material that should have accompanied the application will not normally get a second chance at appeal.

See also our guide to the types of planning application.

Planning appeal relevant legislation

The right of appeal sits in the primary Act; the procedure sits in regulations, as amended in 2026. When checking any provision, use the “Changes to Legislation” panel on legislation.gov.uk, as later amendments are not always shown in the main text.

• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, section 78, the right of appeal against refusal, conditions or non-determination
• Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, section 20, the right of appeal on listed building consent
• Town and Country Planning (Appeals) (Written Representations Procedure) (England) Regulations 2009 (SI 2009/452), the written representations procedure, as amended in 2026 so that Part 1 is the default written representations procedure for section 78(1) appeals relating to applications made on or after 1 April 2026; advertisement consent appeals use the determination date instead
• Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015 (SI 2015/595), appeal deadlines, and the definitions of householder and minor commercial development
• Town and Country Planning (Hearings Procedure) (England) Rules 2000 (SI 2000/1626), the hearing procedure
• Town and Country Planning Appeals (Determination by Inspectors) (Inquiries Procedure) (England) Rules 2000 (SI 2000/1625), the inquiry procedure

Other Planning Appeal Sections

Planning Appeals Page Updated: 30th August 2026