Planning appeal hearings and inquiries

 

Most planning appeals never involve meeting anybody. They are decided on the paperwork. But a small number are dealt with face to face, either at a hearing or at an inquiry, and if yours is one of them it helps enormously to know what you are walking into.

The two are not the same thing, and the difference is bigger than the names suggest. A hearing is a round table discussion led by the Inspector. An inquiry is a formal affair with witnesses, and the other side can question yours.

This page explains what happens at each, who gets to speak, how the Inspectorate decides which one you get, and what it means for you in practice.

 

The three ways an appeal can be decided

 

Every planning appeal in England is dealt with in one of three ways:

• written representations, where nobody meets and the Inspector decides on the documents
• a hearing, which is a discussion round a table, led by the Inspector
• an inquiry, which is formal, adversarial, and closest to a court

Written representations handles the overwhelming majority, and for most householders that is the end of the story. See our page on written representations appeals if that is where you are heading.

Hearings and inquiries are for the cases that genuinely need talking through, or genuinely need testing. Their procedure comes from two sets of rules made in 2000, one for hearings and one for inquiries, and both have been amended a good deal since.

 

What happens at a planning appeal hearing

 

A hearing is deliberately informal, and the rules say so. It takes the form of a discussion led by the Inspector, and cross-examination is not allowed unless the Inspector decides it is needed to examine the main issues thoroughly. Nobody stands up. Nobody is put through their evidence by the other side’s barrister. You are sitting round a table answering questions from the Inspector.

At the start the Inspector will say what he or she thinks the main issues are, and what needs further explanation. That is not a straitjacket, and you are still free to raise something you think matters that the Inspector has not listed.

Before the hearing, the council and you are expected to prepare an agreed statement of common ground between you. That is simply a written note of the facts you both accept, which stops the day being spent arguing about things nobody actually disagrees on.

You can call evidence, though beyond that it is for the Inspector to decide what gets heard. The Inspector can refuse to let in evidence that is irrelevant or simply repeats what has already been said, but if you are stopped from saying something out loud you can still put it in writing before the hearing closes. Someone behaving disruptively can be asked to leave, and again may put their point in writing instead.

One warning. The Inspector can go ahead with the hearing even if you do not turn up. Not attending does not postpone anything.

If you are not the applicant but want to have your say, see our guide to objecting to a planning appeal, which covers when a neighbour is allowed to comment and when they are not.

 

Case management before an inquiry

 

Under the current procedure, an inquiry will normally have a Case Management Conference at about seven weeks from the appeal start date. It is usually a Microsoft Teams meeting involving the appellant, the council, any Rule 6 parties and anyone else the Inspector invites.

The point is to get the inquiry under control before people arrive at the venue. The Inspector can identify the likely main issues, decide which witnesses and evidence are really needed, and work out whether particular topics are best dealt with by cross-examination, a round-table discussion, written material or a combination. A note recording those decisions is normally issued within five working days.

For some cases the Inspector may issue a Case Management Note instead of holding a conference. The largest cases may still have a separate pre-inquiry meeting.

 

What happens at an inquiry

 

An inquiry is a different animal, and it is the expensive end of the appeal system. Most people who go through one are professionally represented, often by a barrister, and the cases that get there tend to be large, contentious, or both.

The key difference is cross-examination. At an inquiry the appellant, the council and statutory parties are entitled to question witnesses. A Rule 6 party is commonly allowed to question the other parties’ witnesses too, but Rule 6 status by itself does not put that party in the statutory list of people entitled to cross-examine. Unless the Rule 6 party is also a statutory party, questioning is for the Inspector to allow and control, and must remain relevant, fair and proportionate.

Evidence goes in beforehand in the form of written proofs of evidence, sent in ahead of the inquiry. Where a proof runs to more than about fifteen hundred words a written summary has to go with it, and on the day it is usually only the summary that gets read out. The rest is taken as read, and the witness is then questioned on the whole of it.

The order of play is set by the rules rather than by custom: unless the Inspector decides otherwise, the council goes first and the appellant has the right of final reply. As at a hearing, the Inspector opens by identifying the main issues, and you can still raise something not on the list.

For a longer inquiry, one the Inspector expects to run to eight days or more, two extra things kick in. There will normally be a pre-inquiry meeting first, to sort out how the inquiry will be run, and the Inspector will prepare a timetable. Anyone making closing submissions at an inquiry of that length has to hand them over in writing by the close.

 

Who decides which one you get

 

Not you. The Planning Inspectorate decides the procedure, and while you can express a preference when you lodge the appeal, and give your reasons, the decision is theirs.

Broadly, the more an appeal turns on testing disputed evidence, and the more complex or contentious it is, the more likely it is to move up from written representations towards a hearing and then an inquiry. A straightforward disagreement about whether an extension is too big will not get an inquiry.

There is a second question buried here that is easy to miss. Some appeals are decided by an Inspector, and some are decided by the Secretary of State with the Inspector writing a report and a recommendation. Different rules apply to the inquiry depending on which of those it is, which is one reason the procedure can look different from case to case.

 

Who can turn up and speak

 

This is the question neighbours ask most, and the answer is more generous than people expect.

At a hearing, the people entitled to appear are the appellant, the council, and any statutory party. But the Inspector can allow anybody else to appear, and the rules say that permission must not be unreasonably withheld. In practice, a neighbour who turns up and asks to speak is very rarely turned away.

An inquiry has a longer list of people entitled to appear, including the parish council if it commented on the application, and other local authorities for the area. Again, the Inspector can permit anyone else, and again that permission cannot be unreasonably withheld.

You do not have to speak for yourself, and you do not have to instruct a lawyer either. Anyone entitled or permitted to appear may either appear personally or be represented by any other person. A friend, a relative or an agent is perfectly acceptable.

 

Site visits

 

The Inspector will almost always look at the site, and this is worth understanding because people worry about it needlessly.

At a hearing, if a point would be better sorted out standing on the site itself, the Inspector can move the hearing there and finish it on site, provided everybody can get there and nobody is disadvantaged. Otherwise the Inspector inspects separately, and must do so if either you or the council asks.

At an inquiry the Inspector may look at the site alone and without telling anybody, before or during the inquiry. There is nothing sinister in that, and it is expressly allowed. An accompanied visit must be arranged if you or the council request one.

One practical point on accompanied visits: the Inspector is not obliged to wait about for anyone who does not turn up at the appointed time. Be there.

For preparation, access arrangements and the limits on what can be said or handed over on the day, see our guide to planning appeal site visits.

 

Switching from a hearing to an inquiry

 

A hearing is not locked in once it has been arranged, and this catches people by surprise on the day.

If either you or the council think the hearing procedure is the wrong one, you can say so and give your reasons. Raised before the hearing, the Planning Inspectorate decides whether to arrange an inquiry instead. Raised during it, the Inspector decides whether to close the hearing and hold an inquiry.

The Inspector can also reach that conclusion without anybody asking. And there is one particular trigger worth knowing: if the Inspector concludes that cross-examination is needed after all, he or she has to consider whether the hearing should be closed and an inquiry held instead. So the very thing that defines a hearing is also the thing that can end one.

The practical lesson is not to treat a hearing as a soft option. Go prepared for your case to be tested.

 

What this does not cover

 

The rules described on this page apply to appeals about planning permission, listed building consent and advertisement consent. They do not cover everything.

Enforcement notice appeals have their own separate hearing and inquiry rules, made in 2002, and those inquiry rules also apply to lawful development certificate appeals. The Planning Inspectorate now publishes a separate procedural guide specifically for lawful development certificate appeals. For enforcement appeals, see our planning enforcement section.

 

What it costs

 

There is still no fee to appeal, whichever procedure you end up in, and each party is expected to meet its own expenses.

That said, this is where an appeal stops being cheap. An inquiry in particular can involve a barrister, expert witnesses and several days of everybody’s time, and none of that comes back to you even if you win.

It is also where the risk of a costs order is at its highest, simply because there is far more money on the table to waste. A party that behaves unreasonably and puts the other side to unnecessary expense can be ordered to pay, and an inquiry that has to be adjourned or abandoned at the last minute is a classic example. See our page on an award of costs in an appeal. The fee you paid the council for the original application is a separate matter, so see our guide to planning fees.

 

The inquiry timetable, week by week

 

Once the Planning Inspectorate decides that an appeal will proceed by inquiry, it sets a start date, an appeal timetable and the inquiry date. Under the current post-April 2026 procedural guide the inquiry will normally be held within 13 to 16 weeks of the start date.

For a typical inquiry decided by an Inspector, the current timetable includes:

• within 1 week, the council sends its questionnaire and supporting documents and writes to interested people
• within 5 weeks, interested people can make representations and the council sends its full statement of case and the agreed statement of common ground
• within 7 weeks, the Inspector will normally hold a case management conference with the appellant, council, any Rule 6 parties and anyone else invited
• 4 weeks before the inquiry, the appellant, council and Rule 6 parties submit proofs of evidence
• at least 2 weeks before the inquiry, the arrangements are publicised and interested people are notified
• no later than 2 weeks before the inquiry, any draft planning obligation should be supplied

If the appellant asks for an inquiry from the outset, the statement of case and a draft statement of common ground should accompany the appeal. If an appeal starts under the expedited Part 1 written representations procedure and is later transferred to an inquiry, that does not exclude it from the inquiry process: the Inspectorate issues a revised timetable and usually gives the appellant two weeks to submit further information such as a statement of case and draft statement of common ground.

A Rule 6 party required to produce a statement of case must follow the deadline set by the Inspectorate, and then submits its proof of evidence four weeks before the inquiry.

Where the Inspectorate sets a case-specific timetable, that timetable governs. Recovered appeals have a modified timetable, and enforcement notice and lawful development certificate inquiries use their separate procedural rules.

 

If the decision goes against you

 

The Inspector’s decision, or the Secretary of State’s where the case was recovered, is the end of the planning process. There is no further appeal on the merits, and the fact that a hearing or inquiry took days rather than minutes makes no difference to that.

The only route onwards is the High Court, which asks whether the decision was lawfully made rather than whether it was right, and which runs on a short clock. See our page on judicial review and section 288 challenges.

If you have not yet lodged your appeal, check the deadline first on our page about planning appeal timescales, and see our guide to planning appeals for the process as a whole.

See also our guide to the types of planning application.

 

 

Relevant legislation

 

A warning about these two sets of rules. Neither has ever been consolidated on legislation.gov.uk, so the only version you can read there is the original 2000 text. Both have been amended several times since, including a substantial set of changes in 2013 that altered the documents required and the timetable. Always open the “Changes to Legislation” panel and work through the amendments before relying on any wording, and treat any timetable you find in the original text with particular caution.

• 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 where an Inspector decides the appeal
• Town and Country Planning (Inquiries Procedure) (England) Rules 2000 (SI 2000/1624), the inquiry procedure where the Secretary of State decides
• Town and Country Planning (Hearings and Inquiries Procedure) (England) (Amendment) Rules 2013 (SI 2013/2137), which replaced the old hearing statement and statement of case with a single full statement of case, brought in a statement of common ground for hearings, and changed the timings
• Town and Country Planning (Hearings and Inquiries Procedure) (England) (Amendment and Revocation) Rules 2015 (SI 2015/316), which extended the 2000 Rules to advertisement appeals
• Town and Country Planning (Enforcement) (Determination by Inspectors) (Inquiries Procedure) (England) Rules 2002 (SI 2002/2685), the separate rules for enforcement notice and Certificate of Lawfulness appeals
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, section 78, the right of appeal against refusal, conditions or non-determination

Other Planning Appeal Sections

 

Planning Appeal Hearing and Inquiry Page Updated: 29th August 2026