Object to an appeal for planning? What a neighbour can do

 

Your neighbour applied for something you were not happy about. The council refused it, you thought that was the end of the matter, and now a letter says they have appealed.

The first thing to know is that your right to object to an appeal is not the same as your right to object to the original application, and since 1st April 2026 it often is not there at all. That sounds alarming, but there is a good reason for it and your original objection has not been thrown away.

This page explains what you will be told, whether you get a second say, where your first objection went, and what you can do if the council grants permission rather than refusing it.

 

You cannot appeal a decision yourself

 

Start here, because it saves a lot of wasted effort. Only the person who made the planning application can appeal. There is no third party right of appeal in England.

So if the council refuses your neighbour’s plans, only your neighbour can challenge that. And if the council grants permission and you think it should not have, you cannot appeal it either. Your only route in that situation is a challenge in the High Court, which looks at whether the decision was made lawfully rather than whether it was a good idea, and which runs on a short clock entirely of its own. See our page on judicial review and section 288 challenges before assuming it is realistic.

 

The council must tell you an appeal has been made

 

If you commented on the original application, you should hear about the appeal without having to go looking. The council has to write to interested people once an appeal starts, and it must tell you:

• that an appeal has been made
• that whatever you already said to the council will be sent to the Planning Inspectorate and to the appellant, and will be considered by the Inspector
• how to withdraw your earlier comments if you no longer want them taken into account
• that the decision will be published online

The council’s notification duty is wider than only people who objected. Its current appeal guidance says it should notify people who were notified or consulted about the original application, as well as people who made representations. If you fall outside those groups, you can still find the appeal yourself using the Planning Inspectorate’s online appeal search and follow the case by its reference.

 

Whether you get a second say depends on the procedure

 

This is the part that has changed, and it surprises people.

Appeals now run down one of several tracks, and the letter from the council will tell you which one this appeal is on. It decides whether objecting to a planning appeal is open to you at all.

The expedited track, called Part 1. Most appeals against a refusal of planning permission now go this way. Interested people cannot send in comments at the appeal stage. The Inspector decides the appeal on what was already in front of the council, and that includes the comments neighbours made at the time. The council’s letter will say plainly that there is no opportunity for further representations.

The fuller track, called Part 2, and hearings and inquiries. Here you can comment at the appeal stage. You normally have five weeks from the appeal start date, and you send your comments to the Planning Inspectorate rather than to the council. Late comments are usually returned unread, so the date matters.

Non-determination appeals, listed building consent appeals and discontinuance notice appeals all fall outside the expedited track, so those are ones where you will usually get a further say.

 

Your original objection is not lost

 

This is the reassuring bit, and it is worth being clear about because a lot of people assume they have to start again.

Whatever you wrote to the council about the application is passed to the Planning Inspectorate and to the appellant, and the Inspector reads it and takes it into account. You do not need to resend it and you do not need to do anything to keep it alive.

You can also go the other way. If you have changed your mind, or you have come to an arrangement with your neighbour, you can ask for your earlier comments to be withdrawn.

 

Where to send comments, if you are allowed to

 

Where the appeal is on a track that allows comments, you send them to the Planning Inspectorate through its online appeal service, using the appeal reference from the council’s letter. If you cannot use the online service, the council will tell you how else to send them.

Anything you send is copied to the appellant and to the council, and appeal documents are published online. Your comments are not confidential, so write them on that basis.

 

What is worth saying, and what is not

 

An Inspector can only take planning matters into account. Strength of feeling, and the number of people who share it, count for far less than most people expect.

Things that usually carry weight:

• overlooking, loss of light or an overbearing effect on your home
• noise, smells, traffic and parking
• harm to a listed building, a conservation area or protected trees
• conflict with a specific policy in the council’s local plan, quoted by number

Things that carry little or none:

• the effect on the value of your property
• boundary disputes, rights of way and covenants, which are private legal matters
• who the applicant is, or what you think of them
• loss of a private view, which is not protected in planning
• the fact that you objected before and think the council got it right

Be specific about your own property. “The two storey side extension would be about three metres from my kitchen window and would block the morning sun” tells an Inspector something. “It is completely out of keeping” does not.

 

The site visit

 

The Inspector will usually visit the site. Sometimes the only way to judge the effect on a neighbour is to stand in that neighbour’s garden or look out of their window, and if that applies to you the council should arrange it and give the Inspectorate your details.

Do not treat it as your moment to argue the case. A site visit is only for looking, and the Inspector will politely refuse to discuss the merits with anybody present. Anything you want said has to be in writing, at the right stage.

For the practical side of the day itself, see our guide to planning appeal site visits, including access, accompanied visits and what you can and cannot point out.

 

Hearings and inquiries

 

A small number of appeals are dealt with face to face. You can normally attend, and the Inspector will usually let interested people speak, though it is at their discretion rather than a right.

At an inquiry there is also a formal status, known as a Rule 6 party, which lets a group take part as a main party and call its own evidence. Rule 6 parties are commonly allowed to question the other parties’ witnesses, but Rule 6 status on its own does not create the same statutory right to cross-examine as the appellant, council and statutory parties. The Inspector decides what questioning to allow and controls its scope and conduct. It is demanding, it involves producing a written statement of case, and it is rarely granted to individuals rather than to organised groups such as a parish council or a residents’ association. See hearings and inquiries for how these events run.

 

What it costs to object

 

Nothing. There is no fee to comment on an appeal, and no fee to attend a hearing or an inquiry.

Costs awards against ordinary interested people are not expected other than in exceptional circumstances, so commenting sensibly carries no real financial risk. Someone who takes on formal Rule 6 status at an inquiry is in a different position, because they can both receive an award and be liable for one. See our page on an award of costs in an appeal. If you are wondering what the applicant paid the council in the first place, see our guide to planning fees.

 

The lesson for next time: comment at application stage

 

If you take one thing from this page, take this. Under the expedited track your chance to influence an appeal is almost entirely at the application stage, not the appeal stage.

That means the letter you get from the council when a neighbour first applies matters far more than it used to. If you have concerns, put them in writing then, in planning terms, within the period the council gives you. That objection is the one the Inspector will read months later.

See our guide to neighbour consultation and publicity for how and when councils have to tell you about an application.

 

If it was your application that was refused

 

This page is written for the neighbour rather than the applicant. If you are the one who was refused, see what to do when a planning application is refused, and our guide to planning appeals.

See also our guide to the types of planning application.

 

 

Relevant legislation if you object to an appeal

 

Links below go to legislation.gov.uk. Always check the “Changes to Legislation” panel at the top of each provision, because amendments are often listed there before they are written into the text.

• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, section 78, the right of appeal, which is given to the applicant alone
• Town and Country Planning (Appeals) (Written Representations Procedure) (England) Regulations 2009 (SI 2009/452), the written representations procedure, as amended in 2026 to expand the Part 1 expedited route to most section 78(1) appeals relating to applications made on or after 1 April 2026
• 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, including Rule 6 status

Other Planning Appeal Sections

 

Object To An Appeal for Planning Page Updated: 29th August 2026